


The French Drop

by nubianamy



Category: Sneakers (1992)
Genre: 1960s, 1990s, Angst, Codes & Ciphers, College, Dirty Talk, Heist, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Phone Sex, Romance, Slash, Technology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-01 04:24:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nubianamy/pseuds/nubianamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosmo and Marty began as friends and lovers in college, but the feds intervened.  Over twenty years later, they meet again to finish what they started.  Slash, Martin/Cosmo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. September 1969

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my favorite movies of all time. It has the plot of a twisty heist movie, with cutting edge technology (for its time), along with several other spectacular elements: twelve-year-old-boy humor, Scrabble, codes, quirky geeky characters, an excellent score, and an absolutely stellar cast. What it doesn't have is a clearly happy ending. I decided to fix that.
> 
> Also, I really couldn't resist slashing Robert Redford and Ben Kingsley, because they are SO CUTE together. I highly recommend you watch the movie, but you can read the story without having seen it. Here's a brief clip of the two of them together from the middle of the movie (spoiler), so you can see the chemistry for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coDtzN6bXAM
> 
> Along the way, this story pretty much turned into an adventure for my own personal (non-BDSM) kinks. I can't feel too guilty for that, but you have been warned.

_The French drop is a well-known vanish involving sleight of hand. The magician takes a coin or small object between the fingers and the thumb with fingers facing the audience and thumb behind.... The left hand appears to come away with the object and the space between the right hand finger and thumb is seen to be empty. After a brief pause the magician opens his left hand and the object has disappeared. In some versions the right hand can also be seen empty, leaving no clue as to where the object went._

_  
_

* * *

**September 1969**

 

They didn’t start out as roommates.  That happened a few weeks after the beginning of junior year, when Cosmo found himself assigned to a room with a freshman whose idea of a good time involved way too much alcohol and not nearly enough brain cells. 

Marty was a friend from class, not someone he knew well, but they had most of the same professors, both being engineering majors.  Marty’s PI had an office down the hallway from the lab where Cosmo worked, doing scutwork for his double major in biochemistry, so they ran into each other with some frequency.  One day Marty caught Cosmo in the hall and tugged him into his PI’s office with a teasing smile.

“I need your help,” he said in an excited undertone, and Cos had felt that tension in his gut that meant _something dangerous is going to happen, and I want to be part of it._

“What can I do?” Cos said breathlessly. 

It had just been a harmless prank – Marty and two graduate students were going to cup a fellow professor’s lab.  This involved a couple gross of Dixie cups filled with water, laid out to cover every available surface, with a few conveniently filled with juice in order to spell out the word HA. Juvenile, but right up Cosmo’s alley. 

After that, Cos and Marty had smiled at each other more often, and things had felt more easy between the two of them.  And even though the actual number of words they’d spoken to one another were few, Cos felt like he got Marty.  That maybe Marty might get him. 

So it was Marty he approached one morning at breakfast.  Marty was sitting alone, drinking half-coffee, half-chocolate milk with his eggs and sausage.  Cos let out a calculated sigh as he dropped into a chair across from him. 

“You okay?” Marty asked, wiping coffee off his moustache with his napkin. 

“God, my roommate.”  Cos rolled his eyes, picking at his toast.  “He seems to think it’s his personal mission to empty a fifth of vodka into his stomach every weekend, and then to deposit it, none too neatly, in the trash can between three AM and five AM.”

“Hey, that’s rough,” said Marty, looking sympathetic.  “I guess I lucked out, getting a single this year.”

“Guess so,” Cosmo said, trying to pitch his sad face just right. He made another sigh and spread butter on his toast in silence.  Marty watched him. 

“You could switch with someone,” he offered.  Cos made a face, and Marty hastened to add, “I mean, not that most of these jerks would be prime roommate material.  You need somebody who… well –“

“Who wouldn’t mind how much room my tape drive takes up?” Cos suggested, and Marty laughed, letting out a breath.

“Yes -- that.  Somebody who understands the significance of ARPANET.” Marty took an enthusiastic bite of eggs and grinned at Cosmo.  Cos grinned back, feeling a little lightheaded.

“Somebody with access to the mainframe after hours,” added Cos.

Marty considered him.  “Somebody who would appreciate the printout of data numbers I got from a questionable source?”

Cos’s eyes gleamed.  “Exactly.” 

They made the switch that night, only bothering to check with their resident assistant after the fact.  Cos’ freshman alcoholic-in-training was only too happy to ditch his square, nerdy roommate for the smaller solitary space that Marty had vacated at the end of the hall. 

It wasn’t until Marty was all moved in that Cos said to him, haltingly, “That was… really nice of you, to do this for me.”

“Hell, I was bored, living all alone,” said Marty, and threw an arm around Cosmo.  “Now? You’re buying the Chinese takeout.” 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Marty had a girlfriend at the beginning of the year, a petite math major named Lisa, but she didn’t come around as much as the days got colder.  It didn’t occur to Cosmo to think about why that might be until midterms, when Marty set a black coffee on his desk and said, “You and me, man – all nighter, here, until we know those theorems backwards and forwards.”

“What about Lisa?” Cos said, not looking up from his notes.  “Isn’t she in that class, too?” 

Cos didn’t realize the silence had stretched out so long until Marty cleared his throat.  “Uh… yeah.  She’s not… we’re not seeing each other anymore.”

“Oh – hey.”  He did look up then, startled, but Marty wasn’t looking back.  “You okay?”

Marty shrugged.  “Yeah.  It was kind of mutual.  We decided we weren’t so compatible.”

Cosmo’s textbook lured him back to studying, and he said absently, “No? She seemed like a nice girl.  And pretty – I mean, if you like that sort of thing.”

Marty laughed, a little uneasily.  “Well… I guess that’s the point.  I… uh, I don’t think I do like that sort of thing.”

Cosmo paused in reading while his brain attempted to parse what Marty had said, but after several moments, it still didn’t make any sense.  He stared up at Marty, eyebrows furrowed.  “What?”

Marty blew out a breath and rolled his eyes.  “Posit: My admittedly foxy and smart ex-girlfriend wanted a deeper commitment, and I said no thanks.” 

Cosmo leaned forward in his chair, scrutinizing Marty’s nervous posture, his moving hands.  “Consequence: you’re… frustrated?”  Marty snorted, flushing, and Cos grinned.  “Yeah, okay.  Result?”

“Hard to focus on midterms,” Marty muttered.  He crossed his arms over his chest and sighed.  His glance flickered back to Cosmo, who was still staring at him, somewhat perplexed.  “Conclusion?”

“You need a new girlfriend?” Cosmo guessed. 

Marty gazed back at him, then shook his head.  “Faulty logic,” he said softly.  “Inaccurate a priori knowledge.”

And then Cos got it, and he felt his face go scarlet. Marty saw it happen, and headed for the door, hanging his head and calling, “I’ll see you later.”

Cos spent the better part of a half hour freaking out before he realized there was absolutely no logical reason for that.  Marty hadn’t given him any reason not to trust him.  He’d come forth with this information.  It wasn’t the end of the world. 

When Marty knocked on their own door five hours later wearing a tentative expression, Cosmo was ready with a friendly smile.  _Because even if my roommate is a queer,_ he thought, _that doesn’t mean he’s any different than he was yesterday, and I liked him just fine then._

“Ready for that all-nighter,” Cos said, holding up his differential equations textbook, and Marty visibly relaxed, giving him a grateful smile.  Cosmo felt oddly proud of himself for being so open-minded. 

They were diligent and focused enough that their all-nighter ended at twelve-thirty, and when Marty offered him a joint, Cosmo was in no shape to say no. He put a Beatles album on the record player.  It made Marty a little melancholy to listen to it, since the Beatles had broken up earlier that year.  Cos was more of a classical fan, himself, but he knew Marty still thought it was the best music in existence, and he didn’t want to be too much of a square about it.

“You’re gonna ace this midterm,” he said to Marty, passing the joint back for the third time.  They sat cross-legged on the floor by the bunkbed.  Cos noticed how careful Marty was being not to touch him: no casual contact, no accidental brushes with his fingers.  It was kind of irritating. “You’ve got a super memory.”

“Yeah, I never had trouble remembering numbers,” Marty agreed.  He let the smoke curl out of his nose, holding it as long as he could before exhaling.  Cos watched him hold the joint and had a strange impulse to lean in and take a drag right from his fingers.  He shook it off. 

“But that doesn’t really mean anything, does it?” Marty went on, staring at the wall.  “I mean, we’re here, at school, learning all kinds of things, right on the cutting edge of all of it – ARPANET, the moon landing, everything – but nothing’s changing, is it?  The world’s still going to shit.  Race relations, inequality, capitalism, and the war --”

“But we _can_ change it, Marty,” said Cos.  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, feeling the mind-opening effect of the pot starting to take hold, and he smiled at Marty.  “I know we can.”

“Maybe,” Marty said.  Cosmo shook his head impatiently.

“Really.  Come on.  Posit: the world needs fixing.  Consequence: we’re going to take what we learned here and put it to work, changing things that stink.”  He put a hand on Marty’s shoulder, and Marty paused, looking back with startled blue eyes. “I can think of a few things, already.”

“Result?” Marty said after a minute.  “Things get better for… people like me.”

“For everybody,” Cos insisted.  “Maybe you realize you’re not so alone.  Power to the people means everybody, right?”  He squeezed Marty’s shoulder.  “Conclusion?”

Marty smiled.  Cos was so glad to see it that he laughed, which made Marty smile even bigger. “As it turns out, I’m not so alone to begin with.”

“Nah,” Cosmo agreed.  “I’m here.”

They worked their way through another joint, accompanied by several meandering conversations about the war, Nixon, Students for a Democratic Society, and whether the new rock opera Tommy was just too hippie to be cool.  Eventually Cosmo stood, stretched and dug his pajamas out from under his pillow.  He tried to be casual as he went to the bathroom to change, but even stoned as they were, Marty still noticed.

“You don’t have to be any different around me,” he said, sounding not hurt, as Cos would expect, but resigned.  “I’m still the same as I was yesterday.  I’m not going to... to _take advantage_ of you or anything.”

Cos paused in the doorway to the bathroom with a little snort.  “Well, why not?  Don’t tell me you don’t want this body.”

Cos had no illusions about how appealing his skinny engineer self was, even if his biceps had finally popped after having no definition for the first two years of college.  Which was why Marty’s uncomfortable face made no sense.  “Hey,” Cosmo said.  “Really.  Joking. It’s not a problem, Marty.”

Marty nodded, but didn’t watch as Cosmo defiantly stripped off his shirt and pants and slipped on his pajamas, right there in the middle of their dorm room.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t done it dozens of times already, without thinking about it.  No reason to think about it now.

But he _was_ thinking about it.  Climbing the ladder to his bunk, he was thinking about it a lot.  Thinking of Marty, lying in the bed beneath him, wondering if he was thinking about it, too. 

Cosmo lay back on his bed, watching the room spin lazily around him.  Pot always made him horny. He wondered if he might be able to get away with choking the chicken once Marty’s breathing finally evened out into sleep, but the movement of the bunk was hard to disguise.  Not that both of them hadn’t done that in the room before, at night, but it hadn’t felt so… personal, before. 

_Does he think about me, when he does that?_  Cos couldn’t help it, and he gripped himself through his pajama pants, giving himself a little squeeze. 

“Cos?”

Marty’s voice, coming at him in the dark like that, while Cosmo had his dick in his hand, was surprisingly moving.  He caught his breath, trying to sound as normal and casual as he could.  “Yeah, Marty?”

“It really doesn’t bother you?  That I… that I might be a… a homosexual.” 

_Not if it doesn’t bother you, Marty._   Cos let go of himself for a moment, not feeling guilty, exactly, but… well, maybe a little guilty, because the sound of Marty’s soft words were definitely inspiring some very specific sensations below the waist.  “No,” he said honestly.  “It doesn’t bother me at all.”

“That’s a relief, man.  Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”  _Really.  Don’t._

And then it was just too much for Cos.  He stuck his hand down into his boxers, under his pants, and he knew the bed was moving, he knew he was being obvious about what he was doing.  He just couldn’t bring himself to care.  No, that wasn’t it – he did care, he _wanted_ Marty to feel the bed moving, to know that he was stroking his dick and thinking about – thinking about –

Then he heard Marty take his own shuddering breath, and suddenly Cosmo could feel the bed moving in a new rhythm, and he couldn’t help let out a surprised moan.  _Marty’s doing it, too,_ he thought wildly, his mind making great leaps across gulfs of possibility.  _He’s jacking off in his bed, underneath me.  He knows what I’m doing, and he’s doing it -- with me._

When Cosmo came, he did it as silently as he could. He didn’t care much for sitting around in sticky shorts, but there was no way he was going to get up and miss Marty’s own conclusion.  Cos could tell it was close.  He heard Marty’s breathing change, and the subtle movement of the bunk rocking sped up for a few incredible seconds, and then – it stopped. 

_Did you do that on purpose?_ Cos wanted so much to ask, but he knew that would be crossing a big line, and he wasn’t going to do that.  Instead he wiped himself off as best he could, and tried to sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They did it every night after that. 

They never said anything about it to one another.  Marty would rise from  studying at his desk and say, casually, “I’m going to bed now.”  And Cos would go brush his teeth, and get into his pajamas, already half-hard without laying a hand on himself, and climb into his bunk and lie there.  Marty would turn off the light.

And then Cosmo would pull the elastic of his pants down over his dick, now rock-hard, harder than he’d ever felt it before when he was jacking off to thoughts of Alice Grossman’s tits.  And he would feel Marty’s own rhythm, shaking the bunk beneath him, and knowing exactly what he was doing made it that much more intense.  He could imagine Marty, on his stomach, rubbing into the mattress, his fist curled over his straining cock, thrusting hard, not caring that Cos could feel him. 

Wanting him to, if Cosmo had to be honest, because this was unquestionably for each other, now.  They never started before the other got into bed, even when it took a little longer for one of them to get ready.  Cos would lie there, squirming, feeling his hard dick’s pressure on the seam of his pajamas, but keeping his hand to himself, until Marty was lying down in the bunk below him, lights safely out.  And Marty sometimes would make this noise, this satisfied, relieved little sigh as he began.  Cos would strain his ears for every one of his sounds: the way Marty breathed in rhythm, the slick, wet slip-slap of his hand, the grunts and stifled gasps as he found new fantasies to inspire himself.  It was always silent at the end, though, and Cos wondered if Marty put his face into the pillow when he came. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

One morning, Cos woke earlier than usual, before the sun had quite risen outside, to the unmistakable sound of Marty getting off in the bottom bunk.  He could hear the usual wet, slick sound of his hand stroking himself in rhythm, and feel the movement of the bunk.  But this time, Marty wasn’t being silent.  Cos could hear him talking to himself, saying things under his breath that he clearly didn’t think Cosmo would be listening to.  Cos held as still as possible, not wanting to interrupt, not wanting to miss a word of Marty’s whispered litany.

“… do you from behind, you like it, I know you want it… giving it to you hard, making you take it… fucking you right in your ass, you pervert, sliding into you, so tight, so good, fuck… come on, right on your knees, spreading you wide… feel my dick filling you up…”

It was so improbable to hear Marty’s calm, friendly, boy-next-door voice saying such things that Cosmo wasn’t even sure it was him at first – although, really, if there _had_ been another guy in the bed with him, that might have been a little disturbing.  But when he heard Marty say, “God, fuck, Cosmo, you’re so tight,” Cos let out a whimper that didn’t sound like it could have come from him. 

And then Marty just shut up, went completely silent and still, like he was made of stone. 

Cos touched his own cock, hard and ready, even more than it usually was in the morning, and wondered desperately what to do.  _Don’t stop,_ he wanted to urge.  His body was aching for it; he wanted, more than anything he could think of, to hear what _else_ Marty wanted to do to him.  With only mild trepidation, he opened his mouth. 

“Want to feel you – grab your dick in my hand,” he said, a little louder than a whisper.  He heard Marty take a sharp breath.  Whoever this Marty was, the one in the bunk who had been saying those things, Cos somehow knew that he wouldn’t mind hearing Cos say them, either.  He tried again, feeling the tension gather beneath his navel, and he thrust forward with his hips against the bed.  “So hard – so hot.  So fucking gorgeous – going to make you suck my cock.”

Marty’s answering groan was loud enough to make Cos wonder if their neighbors suspected they had girls over.  It didn’t worry him enough to ask him to quiet down, though, because Marty’s voice was just about the most fucking sexy thing he’d ever heard, and he wasn’t going to tell him to _stop_ talking, not any time soon.  Not ever. 

Cos started to stroke in earnest, the bed moving in its now familiar rhythm, hinges squeaking, the frame bumping the wall occasionally.  No, this time, it was the accompaniment that was different, the words that would have made Cos blush with shame to hear anyone say in the light of day, but to hear them from Marty, in the privacy of their dorm room, in the dark just before dawn seemed completely, absurdly, exactly what he wanted. He heard Marty’s own rhythm begin again, rocking the bed in counterpoint as he spoke, and it was so ridiculously, brain-numbingly _hot._

“Gonna swallow you right down, god, your big cock, I’m taking it right down my throat, you’re making me take it, you’re fucking my mouth, come on, Cos, fuck my mouth, come in my mouth, on my face, on my neck, come _on,_ fuck, just _give it to me…!”_

“M-Marty,” Cos moaned.

Marty’s cries landed on Cosmo’s skin like miniature explosions.  Cos felt the bed jerk as he gave a couple more thrusts, and then he heard him panting, “That’s it, Cos, come on, you come too, just give it to me, come on…”

It didn’t take long at all for him to follow Marty into spectacular release, but this time, for the first time, he wasn’t afraid to make a little noise.  His own voice was hoarse and a little rough and low, as it often was in the morning, and he let himself say, “Fuck, Marty, you’re so good, you make me come so fucking hard…”

The room was full of breathing for about a minute after that, and Cos thought maybe Marty had fallen back asleep for a little while.  But then he heard him stir, and he heard Marty say in a worried tone, “Cos?”

Face flaming, Cos thought he would sit this one out, feigning sleep.  But then he realized he really _couldn’t_ do that to Marty, and he replied, “Yeah.”

“You’re there?”

“Yeah, Marty, I’m here.”

“All right.” 

Those were the only words spoken, but Marty seemed satisfied with them, and Cos wasn’t saying anything more.  They lay there in their beds for a little while, and eventually Cos slept again.

 

He didn’t see Marty again until after physics class, at lunch.  Marty was already sitting with other friends, but there was a spot open next to him.  Cos got his tray with salad and macaroni and a sandwich.  He made Marty a half-coffee, half-hot chocolate.  Then he slid into the chair beside Marty and set the drink on the table.

Marty was talking and laughing with Brian, but he took the drink, sipped it.  When he set it down, it was on his own tray.  Cosmo felt an inexplicably warm, pleasant sensation inside his rib cage, and he ate the rest of his lunch in peaceful silence.

Later, walking in the hall through the math building, Marty passed him, smiled at him, nodded and said, “Farm out.”

“Right arm,” Cos replied.  Those were ordinary, every day words, and he didn’t need to be afraid of them, or of bumping fists with Marty as he walked right by. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes it was silent after that, and sometimes it was Marty’s words that initiated things, but it became a twice a day event: in the morning before they rose, and at night before they went to bed.  They still never touched, never discussed it. 

Every now and then, Cos would see Marty watching him later that day, as though to say, _We okay?_ and Cos would nod and look away.  That was him, saying, _Yeah, we’re okay, but this is all.  This is all I can do._   And Marty never pressed him for more.

Cosmo tried not to think about it much during the day. It was too raw, too embarrassing, and far too illustrative of things about himself that he was not ready to admit. 

The end of the semester snuck up on him.  Marty was going home for vacation, but Cos was staying at school.  They knew enough about each other’s families by now, and Marty was sympathetic about Cosmo’s old man, how he drank and said things he meant but shouldn’t say under any circumstances.  It was better for Cos to be at school over break and not to have to deal with it. 

The night before Marty’s last day was silent, as most of them were.  Cosmo brushed his teeth, then climbed into bed and lay on his stomach, waiting for Marty, feeling restless.  When he had time to wait like this, he would indulge in letting his mind wander.  He could almost picture Marty there, could imagine him lying next to him in the bed, running a hand over Cosmo's back, down along his thighs, pressing between his – he let out a gasp.

“Cos,” Marty said, low and intense, from across the room.  

Cosmo waited, his heart pumping double time, as Marty walked toward the bed. This was a deviation from their normal script; a big one.  He didn’t watch him approach, but he could hear Marty, could almost pick up and hold the tension between them. 

“Cos,” he said again, and it was tender and full of things that made Cos feel like crying.

“Go to bed, Marty,” he said, as calmly as he could.  “Just go to bed.”

For a moment, Cos thought Marty might not listen -- but then he did climb into his own bunk, and there was nothing from him, no words or movement or anything, just the sound of his breathing. 

Cos swallowed.  His head was swimming, his heart in his throat, his cock achingly hard, because… because Marty wanted more.  Wanted _him_. 

“You like this,” Cos said tentatively.  Marty’s breathing caught, and Cos heard him shifting in the bunk below.

“Yeah,” Marty said.  He sounded defeated.  “I do.”

Cosmo let his hand ghost down over his own legs again, between them, and touched, feeling his body clench in response.  “You want to… do me?” he said.

“Yeah.  All of that. You heard me say it.”

“No, I mean… right now.  You want to do me?”

Marty’s shocked silence almost drove Cosmo to speak again, but eventually Marty said, incredulous, “You… you want that?”

Part of him did.  The several inches of insistent erection currently being crushed into the bed definitely did, and the pulsing opening at the base of his spine.  It had seldom been used for anything other than its usual output procedure, but he could feel himself wanting to be touched there, to be… filled.  He opened his mouth to say something hot, but the words that came out were, “I’m a little scared, but yeah.”

“Cos,” Marty said, his voice gentle.  “I’ve never – I mean, there hasn’t been anybody –“

“I know,” said Cos.  “Me, neither.”

Cos heard Marty sit up in bed, then stand.  He reached out and put a hand on the wooden railing.  Cosmo wondered if Marty could tell how he was feeling, how much he wanted – _this,_ wanted _him_ , but he wasn’t moving until he knew for sure that Marty wasn’t going to –

“Can I… come up?” Marty asked. 

“Uh.”  Cosmo’s brain went blank, and he just stammered, “S-sure.” 

He moved back to make room for him as Marty climbed the ladder and swung a leg over the edge of the railing.  It wasn’t the only time Marty had ever been up in Cosmo’s bunk, but it was the first time since they’d been having their morning and evening rendezvous.  He settled down beside him, their knees and ankles bumping.

Cosmo had no idea what to expect.  Should he touch him?  What could he say?  He sighed and put his head down on the pillow, avoiding Marty’s eyes.

Cos felt Marty’s hand on his back, warm through his pajamas.  “I’ve got some lotion.”

“What?”

“Lotion,” Marty insisted.  “For… making things slick.  I think we’d need it.  You don’t use lotion, do you?  When you’re… by yourself, here?”

“No.”  Cos’ voice cracked.  To his own ears, he sounded fucking terrified, and it wasn’t too far off from the truth.

Marty brought his arm down around Cos’ shoulder in a kind of half-hug, lying down beside him in the bed.  He was so close, and his face was right next to Cosmo’s. He was near enough that if Marty looked at him, Cos knew he would be able to see _everything_ Cos was thinking and feeling.  He kept his face turned away.

“It’s okay,” Marty said.  “We don’t have to do anything.”

Cos felt Marty touch his mouth to his cheek, and he wasn’t sure if Marty was trying to say something into his ear, or to kiss him, but Cosmo somehow didn’t care. 

“I want to,” he whispered. 

With that terrifying admission, Cosmo rolled over onto his back and looked up at him.  And Marty was just – Marty.  There wasn’t anything scary or weird about him.  In the dim light from the streetlights outside, Cos could see his eyes, blue and big and full of questions.  He licked his lip under his moustache.

“I want to, too,” Marty whispered back. 

Cos reached up with one hand and pulled him down, pressing their lips together.  Marty groaned as their tongues touched, and he opened up to Cos, his mouth hot and wet, giving Cos all kinds of perverse ideas about what _other_ things he might want to do with that mouth.  It made him deepen the kiss, and his hands went to Marty’s chest, touching him through his t-shirt.  Suddenly he wanted more skin, to feel Marty right there on top of him.  No bed, no air, nothing between them but the slip of skin against skin.

“Can I take off your shirt?” Cos asked. 

Marty sat up, struggling his t-shirt over his head and tossing it over the side of the bunk.  He was pretty well built, if you liked things like that.  In this moment, Cos was only a little ashamed to admit he really, really did.  His own hands went to the buttons on his pajama top, and Marty watched, mouth open and eyes enormous, while Cos took it off.  His eyes, and then his hands, slid over Cos’s bare chest, finding all the most sensitive spots and inspiring echoes of sensation all over his body. 

“C’mere,” Cos urged, his hands around Marty’s back, pulling him down.  And then Marty was on top of him, his whole body, lying right there astride Cosmo, and he could _feel_ the scalding heat of Marty’s throbbing erection, digging into his hip.  His breathing went erratic for a moment. 

“I’m so fucking turned on right now,” Marty murmured.  It was entirely needless, but it was hot anyway, and Cosmo pressed his own hard cock into Marty’s abdomen, thwarted only by the two thin layers of fabric of Cosmo’s pajamas and Marty’s boxers. 

“I want to touch you,” Cosmo said, and Marty groaned, right into his ear, and _god_ , he didn’t know he could get any harder.  He dug his fingers into Marty’s back, holding him tighter, and they spent a good ten seconds thrusting in tandem against each other before Marty sat up again.  Cos lay a hand on Marty’s abdomen, tight with need, and tugged at the hem of his boxers.

Marty didn’t need to be asked twice; he just pulled the hem back and drew it down to reveal his long white cock.  Before he could think about anything, Cos reached out and wrapped a hand around it, stroking him, just like he would stroke himself.  Marty cried out, thrusting into his grip. 

“God – fuck,” he panted.  “Don’t, unless you want me coming on your – oh, god, ohgod, Cos!”

Through his haze of lust, Cosmo considered the bottle of Marty’s lotion, sitting next to them on the bed.  He’d never tried it before with anything like that, but sometimes in the shower with soap, which did feel fantastic, and sometimes his own hand with spit on it, and that was good too.  It stood to reason he’d like it slick, and why hadn’t he thought of that before?  But this wasn’t the time.  Right now, Cos was going to get Marty off, as fast as he could, make him come hard, shouting Cosmo’s name, and he was going to be right there with him – if he didn’t beat him to the finish line, because this was way, way too fucking hot. 

“Yeah, that’s what I want, Marty,” he muttered, watching him close his eyes and throw his head back like he was some porn star or something.  He was good-looking enough to be one, that was for sure, and Cosmo was pretty certain he’d never thought those words consciously before, but they were _true._   He said them.   “You’re so gorgeous – god, look at you.”

Marty’s hips took over, thrusting, and the bed was suddenly moving in that familiar rhythm, the one they’d set together for the past three months, every night, and just that rocking, squeaking sensation alone was almost enough to drive him to completion, right there.  But then Marty _had_ to put his hand behind his own neck and arch his back, like he was Cos’ own personal wet dream, and chanted, “Oh, fuck, Cos, I’m going to come, going to come, right now –“

The sight of Marty’s arc of spurting come landing on his stomach, along with the friction of Marty’s writhing body against his desperate cock, was all Cosmo needed.  He heard his own cries eclipse Marty’s as he came, hard, in his pajama pants. 

There was a long silence, made tense by the implications of what they’d just done.  Cos was way too blissed out to be upset, but he witnessed Marty avoiding his eyes, pulling away from him in the aftermath, and it hurt his heart to see it. 

“Hey,” he said, still a little breathless, and reached up to pull Marty down against his sticky chest.  He kissed his cheek and whispered into his ear. “Are you okay?”

Marty turned his head with a groan and pressed their lips together.  “Am I –“  He laughed a little, shaking his head.  “I should be asking _you_ that.”

“I, uh… yeah.”  Cos couldn’t suppress his smile.  “I’m good.  I’m… really good.”

“You’re not upset?” Marty said anxiously.  “I mean, you’d have every right to be.  I just practically forced myself on my straight roommate…”

“Not upset, Marty,” Cos insisted.  _Not particularly straight, either, judging by this experience, and what we’ve been doing together for the past couple months._  “I was totally into this.”

“Yeah?”  Marty looked sideways at him, rolling to the side to lie beside him, propped up on his elbow. Cosmo felt himself fracturing into tiny useless pieces at the expression Marty was wearing, directed at _him._   He reached out and touched Marty’s fucking beautiful face. 

“Yeah,” he said softly, and he couldn’t help it, he just leaned in to kiss him, and Marty kissed right back, no question.  It still felt natural, still just what he wanted. “You’re… my friend.  I couldn’t say no to you.”

Marty looked taken aback, and a little shaken.  “Uh, I sure _hope_ you could.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t.  I wouldn’t want to.”  Cos stroked his chest, feeling him shiver.  “Come on, grab that blanket.  You’re cold.”

“Not cold,” Marty said, snagging the sheets and pulling them up over the two of them, but he huddled against the length of Cosmo’s body.

Cos’s arm slipped under Marty’s body, as natural as breathing.  “We should get some sleep.” _Before I make you do it all again._

Cosmo stayed awake for some time after Marty’s eyes had closed, reveling in the unexpectedly wonderful sensations of Marty’s leg brushing his calf, Marty’s breath on his shoulder, Marty’s head on the pillow beside him.  He watched his face, preternaturally beautiful in sleep, and considered staying awake all night just so he could be certain to be the first one awake the next morning.  Because the thing they did every morning was likely to be a hundred times more interesting with both of them in the same bunk. 

But when Cos did wake up the next day, the space next to him was empty, and he was alone in the room.  He reached out to touch the bed, still slightly warm from Marty’s body, and he could feel an equivalent empty space in his own chest. Cos rose reluctantly to dress and go to class, but by the time he got back that afternoon, Marty’s bags and books had gone home for vacation on the train, along with Marty himself.

It was a remarkably uncomfortable feeling not to realize you wanted something until after you didn’t have it anymore. 


	2. December 1969

**December 1969**

Cosmo spent most of semester break riding his bike around the desolate campus and hiding out in the room with the IBM 704 mainframe, writing little programs on punchcards to amuse himself.  He wasted a few evenings hanging out with the two other guys who’d chosen to stay at school, playing Scrabble and barely listening to them argue about pro football.  He read _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep_ for the second time, and _2001: A Space Odyssey_ for the third time.   It was definitely better than being home with his father, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened with Marty.

He was somewhat dismayed to realize that self-pleasuring now held significantly less joy than it had previous to his and Marty’s twice daily shared experience.  Cosmo had never felt particularly guilty about doing that on his own, but now, it wasn’t even _fun._   He woke the first day of break, inspired to hardness by images of Marty kneeling over him, but abandoned the attempt to take care of his arousal halfway through.  After that, he just didn’t bother.

Because until a few days ago, it had been possible for him to convince himself that his interest in their simultaneous independent bedroom activities had been for convenience sake, that the dizzying heat and satisfaction he felt could have come from any external stimulus.  That the sounds and sensations of pretty much any other warm body jacking off in the bunk below his would have been equally enjoyable. 

But not anymore.  Being an up close and personal witness to Marty’s pleasure had made it abundantly clear that he was definitely not just looking for an anonymous masturbation partner. 

Now, when he should be relaxing between semesters, he was disgruntled and restless and bored.  _Lonely,_ whispered the reproachful voice in his head.  It drove him out of the dorm and across the street to the business district, where he walked the flurry-dusted sidewalk, watching guys and girls in stocking caps holding hands and talking, and considered with bemusement how little he wanted that… and how much, at the same time. 

Marty made his way through town to the used bookstore and browsed the science fiction and engineering books and the magazines before casually venturing into the sociology section.  No one was there to watch him pick up Albert Ellis’ _Homosexuality: Its Causes and Cure_ and leaf his way through a few chapters, his lip curling in frustration.  Eventually he gave up.  He clearly wasn’t going to find answers about his confusing desires on the shelves of academia.  

An hour after a tasteless dinner at the diner across the street, and Cosmo had made it halfway through Ursula K. LeGuin’s _The Left Hand of Darkness_ , which actually contained some interesting food for thought.  He was just about ready to give up on the day altogether and retire to his lonely bed when he was startled by the phone.  He watched it ring for a good ten seconds before heaving himself out of the chair and grasping the receiver.

“Hello?” he said.

“Cos,” he heard a breathless voice say.  “It’s me.  Marty.”

“Oh,” he replied, and it was just about all he could manage to say.  There were no questions in his head about why Marty was calling, or if he was as confused and occupied by memories of what had happened, or anything else.  They didn’t come until later. Right at that moment all he could think was, petulantly, _Why aren’t you here?_

“How’s your week going?” Marty asked.

“Uh…”  Cos trailed the long cord back to his chair and sank down into it.  “Fine, I guess.  Quiet.”

“I bet.  We had a good Christmas dinner.”

Cosmo realized with a start that Christmas had come and gone without any notice at all.  He didn’t celebrate it, in any case, but seriously, it was a cultural event, and it hadn’t even crossed his radar.  “That’s good,” he said.  “Did you guys exchange presents?”

“Yeah.”  Marty paused.  “I got you something.”

Cos tried to ignore the leaping in his chest.  “Well, damn, I didn’t get you anything.”

Marty’s voice went soft.  “You kind of did, though.”

Now Cos’ voice quit working altogether, and he just sat there, completely unsure about how to proceed.  Marty cleared his throat.

“I’ve been thinking… a lot about what… what I did.  What we’ve been doing.  At night?”

“Yeah,” Cos whispered.  “Me too.”

“Really?”  He sounded hopeful, and excited, like a puppy, and Cosmo really did not need that image, of a lapful of wiggling Marty, licking his face. Really, he didn’t.  He turned the corner down on his book and set it, a little shakily, on the desk as Marty went on.  “The other night… I know you said you were into it, but I just wasn’t sure, and… I kind of can’t believe you really liked that.”

 _Liked might be the wrong word._   “I was definitely into it, Marty.  I don’t think you could doubt that.”

“Well, no.”  Now he was grinning, and Cosmo shook his head, laughing to himself.  How did Marty make everything so simple?  “I was kind of thinking, though, maybe… we could do it now.”

“You – ?”  Cosmo blinked.  “Where are you?”  He imagined a crazy house in which there was a phone in the bathroom.  He’d known Marty’s family was well-off, but --

"My bedroom."   

“Oh.”  Now he was having trouble swallowing.  He ran a hand over his stomach, in which the butterflies were awake and doing their choreography.  “Uh…” 

“I mean, if you’re not interested, that’s cool.”

His body was completely invested in the idea, so much so that his head was a little dizzy from the exchange of blood from his brain to his dick.  But… there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to pretend this was anything other than intentional and mutually desirable if they had phone sex, right now.  Cos felt the conflict inside him, shame warring with lust, and other things.  Finally, with a sigh, he made his decision. 

“Yeah, sure, that would be fine.  I’d like that.”

“Yeah?”  That word was loaded with all kinds of emotion, and Cos found himself tearing up even as he unzipped his jeans. 

“Yeah.”  _And it’s been six days, and I miss you so fucking much._ He leaned back in his chair, taking his hard cock in hand.  This time, his sigh was more anticipatory.  This was what he wanted -- or at least as close to it as he could get over the phone.  “Yeah… that’s good.”

He could hear Marty shift into familiar breathing patterns, and the rhythmic sounds of his hand, slicking over his own cock.  He knew enough about the way Marty liked it by now, the way he always started with long, slow strokes, and close to the end he liked it fast and focused.  “God, Cos, the way you touched me.  That was so hot.”

Cos groaned, ramping up his own pace a notch, and hunched forward in his chair, letting himself thrust a little into his own hand.  He wished the phone would reach the bed.  He liked to be on his stomach, feeling the push of his own hips into the mattress, the clench in his ass, but there was no way he was going to be able to talk on the phone at the same time he was… _fuck_ , this wasn’t going to take long. 

“I woke up to that picture in my head the other day,” he admitted, “but it wasn’t the same without you here.”

“I know.  It doesn’t feel nearly as good all by myself now.  What the fuck is that about, huh?”  Marty gave a nervous laugh, his voice breathy and… yeah, _sexy,_ Cos had to admit it, couldn’t deny it.  Marty was just fucking _sexy._  

“I don’t know, but it does kind of put a damper on things when you’re not around.”  He rolled his thumb over the head of his cock, remembering how Marty’s looked different, felt different in his hand.  Marty wasn’t circumcised, for one, and he was longer, more slender, and pale and way more beautiful than Cos had ever expected another guy’s dick to be. He closed his eyes against the images that swam before his imagination, the things he wanted and could barely consider, even now.

“Yeah.  I’ll – it’s only six more days, and then – “  Now Marty sounded anxious, and Cos didn’t want _that,_ he just wanted him to shut up and enjoy himself, for god’s sake.  Wasn’t this supposed to be about getting him off?  He sifted through Marty’s frequent pornographic flow of words, so familiar to his memory, and grabbed hold of one particularly vivid fantasy.

“Then I get to have you on your knees, in front of me, sucking my cock,” Cos said roughly, and reveled in the sound of Marty’s shocked intake of breath, and the following moan. 

“God, yeah, I’m gonna do that, I’m gonna take you right down my throat…”  And Marty was off, saying everything he wanted to do and wanted Cosmo to do to him, and Cos just floated away on one hot, desperate desire after another.  He let Marty feed him ideas he hadn’t even considered, and every one was more erotic than the last one. 

“Want to do everything with you,” he whispered, right before he came.  “Want you inside me, fucking me, want to screw you to the floor, god, Marty…”

He heard Marty come apart, his breathing harsh and interspersed with _god_ and _fuck_ and Cosmo’s own name, and at the end, one long, satisfied _yeah._   It was just how Cos felt, too, just one big _yeah._   They sat there, hundreds of miles apart, together, and Cos closed his eyes and smiled. 

“Thanks for calling, Marty,” he said.  “Tomorrow, same time?”

“O-okay,” Marty said, chuckling.  “Yeah, definitely.  Tomorrow.  Have a good night, Cos.”

“You too, man.” 

Cos heard the click of the line disconnecting, and eventually, the sound of the busy signal.  After a few minutes, he managed to get up from the chair and wobble over to hang up the receiver. 

 

* * *

 

Two days before vacation was over, Cos said goodnight to Marty, and ten minutes later found himself on his knees in front of the toilet, puking his guts out.  It wasn’t shame or guilt he was feeling; he was just sick as a dog.  _Something I ate?_ he wondered, between bouts of nausea.  In any case, he stayed on the floor of the bathroom for quite a long time before he decided being back in his own room would be better, even if he had to have a bucket beside him. 

It didn’t take long before he was feverish and his head ached and he was shaking all over.  He didn’t even bother to climb up into his own bunk, he just crawled into Marty’s vacant bed.  Even the smell of Marty on his pillow didn’t make him feel any better.  He drifted off into fitful sleep, waking up periodically to puke up what was left in his stomach.  He was cold and hot and hardly aware what was going on, and his dreams were even crazier than usual. 

One dream had Marty sitting next to him, wiping his face with a wet, cool washcloth, and that felt incredibly good.  Marty made him sit up and drink some water, and his stomach was settled by now, so it stayed down.  He smiled at Marty and said, “I love you,” and Marty looked reasonably happy to hear that, because it was a dream, after all, and thank god for that.

“Close your eyes,” Marty said, and he did.  He thought he felt Marty kiss his forehead, but he couldn’t be sure.

Cos wasn’t sure how long had passed when he woke up for real, but his stomach was completely empty and he was starving.  It was mid-afternoon.  He was still in Marty’s bed.  It didn’t smell very good in the room.  He sat up, feeling light-headed and weak but a lot better.  His mouth tasted like something was growing on his tongue.

“Take it easy,” he heard, and Marty was there next to him.  He gazed up at Marty, who crouched down next to the bed with an anxious smile.  Marty reached out and touched Cos’ head, and Cos winced a little. 

“Pain?” 

“Yeah,” he said, his voice coming out in a raspy croak. 

“Try aspirin,” Marty said, and handed him two.  He held the glass of water while Cosmo swallowed them, and drank.  “Your fever’s gone, I think?  But you weren’t making a whole lot of sense.”

He squinted at Marty.  “Why are you here?  Aren’t you still on vacation?”

Marty shook his head.  “Cos, tomorrow’s the first day of classes.  You’ve been sick for days.  I came back yesterday to find you burning up with fever in my bed and – well, I kind of haven’t left since then.” 

Then Cos could see how Marty’s face was exhausted, and his eyes had dark circles under them.  He leaned back on the bed, feeling dizzy.  “Uh… god.  I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I could tell, you got sick on purpose just to piss me off.”  Marty sounded more relieved than anything else.  “When you didn’t answer the phone on Friday, I changed my train ticket and came back a day early.  Probably a good thing I did.”

Cos lay on Marty’s pillow and watched him walk around the room with a sense of unreality, but it was definitely more real than the dreams he’d been having.  Some of them, anyway.  He realized, with a sudden dawning horror, that some of those dreams had actually _happened._  

“I said – “ he started, but Marty shook his head. 

“You said a lot of stuff, man.  Don’t sweat it.  Any chance I could get you out of bed and into the shower?  You really need it, and that bed could use some clean sheets.”

Cos let Marty shuffle him out of bed and down the hall to the communal bathroom.  They passed neighbors along the way, all of whom seemed relieved to see Cosmo alive.  Cos hesitated beside the showers, but Marty just helped him take his shirt off, and his shorts, and handed him a bar of soap before he turned the water on hot and nudged him under the spray. 

“I’m going to wait for you here,” he said.  “You still look like you might fall over any second.”

Cosmo did his best to wash all the parts of himself that were most disgusting, and the water felt better than he remembered a shower feeling.  He tried not to think about Marty standing out there, waiting for him, or anything else related to Marty, because they were in the bathroom where anyone could see, and even if guys didn’t actually stare at each other’s parts in the bathroom, nobody would miss Cos’s big hard-on for Marty.  _Not thinking about it,_ he told himself resolutely, and finished up as quickly as he could.

Marty’s expression as he held out the towel for Cosmo was shuttered, but after Cos was dry, he handed over Cos’ toothbrush and said, “I’m going to go open the window in the room.”

The room did smell better when he returned, and there were clean sheets on Marty’s bed.  When he closed the door, he heard Marty say, “Lock it,” and Cos had to put a hand on the wall to steady himself at the tone in his voice.  He did manage to reach out and lock the door before Marty had him in his arms and was kissing him – _kissing him,_ right there in the middle of the room, in broad daylight.

“God, I missed you,” Marty gasped, running his hands through Cosmo’s wet hair.  “You – you scared the crap out of me, man, when you didn’t answer the phone, I thought something – I thought maybe you’d decided – and then you were so sick, I wasn’t sure what to do…“

Cosmo clung to Marty as much for balance as anything else, but he let Marty touch him and hold him, and _now_ the hard-on was here, pressing right up against him, and Marty was hard too, and it was definitely not time for talking anymore.  “I missed you, too,” Cos managed to get out, before Marty was walking him over to the bed and pushing him down to sit on the edge.

Marty knelt in front of him, looking for all the world like _he_ was the one who hadn’t eaten for two days, and he pushed the towel aside to reveal Cosmo’s erection, bobbing in the air right by his face.  Right by his mouth. 

“Oh, god, Marty –“ he whispered frantically, before Marty hungrily took his cock between his lips and began the familiar rhythm, the one he knew as well as Cos did by now.  He knew exactly how fast Cos wanted it, the pacing, when to speed up, and Cosmo just leaned back onto the bed with shaking arms and let him take care of everything.  The only sound he could make was the word _god,_ over and over again, and then at some point when he got close to the end, he switched to _yes,_ his own hips twisting up into Marty’s waiting mouth. _Yes, god, yes._

Cos had never had anything like this, had never had a girlfriend or anything, but he could imagine a world in which he never did anything else again, just gave in to the bliss of Marty’s mouth, every day, all the time.  _We wouldn’t change the world, but we’d sure as hell be happy,_ he thought, and he choked off the laugh that accompanied the idea of nobody doing anything but giving each other blowjobs all day. 

And then he heard himself say, “You’re next, Marty, want your cock in my mouth,” and Marty was making hungry grunts, little moans that went straight inside Cosmo and made him crazy, and he was thrusting up into his mouth and coming without any regard for Marty or anything, just _god,_ it felt good.  And, thankfully, Marty wasn’t objecting one bit, he just reached out for Cosmo’s hips and pulled him in, took him, all of him, let him come into his mouth without one word of complaint.

Cos was still shaking with reaction when Marty stripped off his own jeans and crawled onto the bed next to him, saying urgently, “Come on, Cos, I want your mouth, want to feel you…”

He managed to haul himself over between Marty’s legs, onto all fours, positioning himself with his face in Marty’s crotch, much closer than he’d been two weeks ago when last he had encountered a half-naked Marty in his bed.  _I hope I’m better at this than Lisa was,_ was the random thought that crossed his mind before he descended on Marty’s insistent erection.

Judging by Marty’s muffled, blissful noises, he was doing just fine when they heard the doorknob rattle, and their RA’s voice called out, “Cos?  You feeling better?”

Marty pressed a hand to his mouth, stifling his hysterical laughter, as Cosmo paused only long enough to say, “Yeah, Andrew, I’m feeling a lot better, thanks.”

“Okay,” Andrew said, sounding uncertain.  “Can I come in?”

“I’m in the middle of – exercise,” Cos said, and Marty’s bright eyes danced with repressed hilarity.  “I’ll come find you later, okay?”

“Sounds good, man.  Hang in there.”

“You bet,” he muttered, and returned with renewed focus to what he was doing. 

Marty was more quiet after that, not wanting to prompt more unwanted attention from the hallway, but he was clearly enjoying himself, and it wasn’t too much longer before he heard Marty panting, “Oh my god, Cos, oh my god ohmygodohmygod –"

It was enough time for Cos to make up his mind about swallowing, but in the end, he absolutely had to see Marty coming all over himself again, and he replaced his mouth with his hand, stroking hard and fast and slick from his own spit. Marty had turned back into his own personal porn movie, thrusting his head back, arching up into Marty’s touch, and Cos was going to enjoy every moment of it.   Marty gave one last whimpering, shuddering push up into Cosmo’s wet grip, then covered his stomach and Cos’ hand with long white spurts, and finally collapsed back onto the bed.  

“Yeah,” Marty said, gulping in air and clutching for Cos’ hand.  “That… that’s what I missed.”

It was hard for Cos not to be smug, when he had so obviously turned Marty into a puddle of useless goo.  He rested his chin on his forearm, grinning up at Marty’s prone form.

“I’m feeling a lot better,” Cos said fondly.  “Thanks for taking such good care of me.”

"No... problem..." Marty sighed.

 

* * *

 

It was snowing already by the time they had cleaned up the second time, and they’d missed half of dinner, so Marty convinced Cos to come to the mainframe lab for a few hours.  He lured him there with a joint and Chinese food and the promise of night time activities – _my bed has clean sheets,_ he said, and Cos felt his cock jump, even after the time together following his shower. 

They put on some smooth jazz and Cos leafed through Marty’s printout of numbers before sitting down at the terminal screen.  “Where to tonight?”

“Mmmm… I’m feeling like spending some money.  It’s the holidays, after all.  How about the US Treasury?  There’s a number for the Federal Reserve Banking Network on there.”

Cosmo tapped it in, setting the phone receiver on the modem’s hook.  “You never told me where you got these numbers,” he mentioned casually. 

“Let’s just say my father is very well connected in Washington and has no sense of network security.  I was hacking into his accounts by the time I was in tenth grade.”  Marty didn’t look at all ashamed of this; on the contrary, he was grinning.  “You ready?”

He typed in the numbers Marty fed him.  “What’d we just do?”

“The Republican party just made a very generous donation to the Black Panthers.”

“Farm out,” Cos said, begrudgingly impressed.

“Right arm.  Let’s see…”  He turned a page on the printout.  “Oh, Richard Nixon’s personal checking account’s in here.”

“Oh, this is a challenge.  Marty, we have to find somebody truly worthy to give his money to.” 

“How about… the National Society to Legalize Marijuana?”

“Perfect.  How much should he give?”

“He’s a generous man.  I’d say all he’s got.”

Cos sighed, feeling a twinge of guilt.  “Marty… you are sure we won’t get into trouble for this?”

“Cosmo.”  He slapped Cos on the back and leaned over him, smiling.  “Trust me.”

It was hard not to want to trust Marty with that expression on his face, that close to his own, and Cos found himself leaning into Marty’s letterman jacket, almost guiltily taking in the feeling of his warmth and scent and just the feeling of him, right there next to him. 

The hypothetical syllogism was a familiar one, and Cos heard himself say, “I’m going to change the world, Marty,” with complete confidence.  Somehow, though, it felt like he was really saying _You’re making all the impossible things possible, Marty._ Marty was casual about it, but Cos could feel the way he touched him, the way Marty was moving in orbit around Cos, and he basked in the knowledge that in a couple hours, they’d be going back to their room and they’d be even closer than that.  Possibly – he felt faint and dizzy at the prospect – possibly closer than they ever had been before. 

And yeah, he manipulated Marty into going to get the pizza, but maybe that was okay?  After all, Marty was a little on the gullible side.  The phrase _I never lose_ coming out of Marty’s mouth was just about enough to make him laugh out loud, but Cos managed to keep his laughter friendly and social and not at Marty’s expense. Mostly, though, he just loved the way Marty looked at him in amazement when he ditched the coin into his sleeve and pretended to hold up both hands for Marty to pick one.

“Pepperoni pizza, please,” he said, grinning.  “Shaken, not stirred.”  He thought of Marty’s mouth on him that afternoon, his mouth on Marty.  _You just can’t trust anybody these days,_ he said to himself blithely, but it wasn’t true.  He really thought he _could_ trust Marty. He appreciated his trust, what it meant about them, and he didn’t want to lose that.

Which was why, when the doors burst open and the federal agents came rushing into the mainframe lab, shouting, “Police – put your hands where we can see them and step away from the machines,” Cosmo’s sense of betrayal was all that much more acute.  Cos saw Marty through the window, saw him standing below in the snow, and as he shouted his name over and over, all he could think was _No, not now – don’t take this away from me now.  It’s the best thing I’ve ever had.  Don’t split us up._

But Marty vanished into the snow, and Cosmo went to prison.  It would be twenty-three years before he saw him again.


	3. June 1992

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part of the story encompasses the first half of the screenplay. I have to apologize to screenwriters Phil Alden Robinson and Lawrence Lasker, and beg their forgiveness for the sheer quantity of script I appropriated, but like Cosmo says, it has to be right. I've added plenty more detail and shaped it to suit my purposes; yay, fanfiction. For those of you who have not yet seen the movie, it will at least give you a flavor of the screenplay and allow you to follow the story. I hope it will also inspire you to go watch it. 
> 
> For the full experience, read while listening to Branford Marsalis perform James Horner's stunning score at: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL70174309EF9AB23F 
> 
> Enjoy.   
> -amy

 

**June 1992**

_Cos stirred in the bed, squinting his crusty, bloodshot eyes. "Marty," he rasped, and reached for his hand._

" _Shhh," said Marty, taking it and giving it a gentle squeeze. He took the cool washcloth and wiped over Cosmo's forehead, watching him shudder and relax into his touch. "Can you sit up and drink this, Cos?"_

_Cosmo's skin felt dry and hot and papery-thin to Marty's hand. Cos clearly didn't want to drink anything, but he obliged, swallowing twice before turning his head away. Marty eased him back down onto the bed – Marty's bed, where Cosmo had apparently collapsed._

" _I love you," Cosmo whispered._

_Marty let that fevered dream sentence rest in his ears for just one long moment before he stroked his sweaty hair off his face. "Close your eyes."_

_When Cosmo did, Marty leaned over and kissed his forehead. The sentence was inside his head now, burrowing down under his skin and into his organs and bones like a parasite. He'd never be rid of it, now. He closed his own eyes and let it incubate._

* * *

"Martin."

When he opened his eyes, everything inside him was the same. It was his environment that had changed. It was nearly dark, and Crease was touching his arm, and Mother and Whistler were on the other side of the trailer.

Inside him, though, it was still twenty-three years ago, and Cosmo was sick. Cos needed him. Had he really said those words, or had Martin imagined them? Well, he'd never know now, because Cosmo had died in prison nine years ago.

That dream would often resurface when he was embarking on a new relationship, when Martin first heard the words  _I love you_  spoken by someone else. He had heard them last night, in a voice deeper and more resonant than twenty-year-old Cos' had been, but he hadn't had anything to say in reply.

"It's time," said Crease.

Martin heaved himself to his feet, feeling every one of those twenty-three-plus-twenty years. This kind of job took a lot more out of him than it used to.

"We're up," Whistler called, closing his magazine. Martin picked up the binoculars, scoping out the guard, who looked he might be about fourteen, and listening to Mother try to convince Crease that the CIA caused the Managua earthquake. Then Whistler hit the correct wire, and Mother severed the master alarm circuit, and they were off.

The surge of excitement was as familiar as his own name. This was why he did it, after all. Not for the money, though it made him enough to live on - barely - but for the opportunity to feel  _this,_  with every job. He never quite felt so alive as he did when he was breaking into a bank. It was convenient, perhaps, that he and his partners could do it legally.

This heist itself was no different from the ones he'd done a hundred times before, but tonight, Martin's thoughts lingered on Cosmo. Tonight, every little detail seemed to lead back to that three month period in junior year, the brief time during which they had been roommates. So much of Martin's past was a hazy memory, but every moment of that semester was crystal-clear in his mind.

He was distracted enough by his thoughts that he failed his leap over the wooden partition that spanned the bank hallway - or, possibly, it was just that he wasn't as spry as he used to be. The bruise on his leg wasn't nearly as bad as the one on his ego. The four other guys on his team seldom failed to tease one another, but it was a mark of their empathy that they didn't harass Martin tonight. They all seemed to notice that he had been a little on edge.

Even Crease, who of all his friends was the most reluctant to bring up anything related to Martin's sexuality, had made an effort earlier tonight to ask about Ben, the guy he'd been dating for the past few months. "You said he was an ex-cop?" he'd said, a little too casually, while he poured the grounds for the coffee into the filter.

"Oakland PD for eleven years," Martin nodded. It was a surprise, but if Crease was willing to take a risk and ask about Ben, he wouldn't be the one to drop the ball. "I don't think he misses it, though. Teaches high school civics now."

Crease made a face, dusting coffee grounds off the counter. "A guy like that, teaching high school?"

Martin gave him an amused smile. "What? Don't tell me you believe the rumors that we're all out to convert the nation's youth?"

The conversation didn't go any further; Martin knew Crease's limits. He also knew Crease had trusted Martin with his life more times than he could count.  _What's a little homophobia between friends like that?_

When he'd gone back to his apartment that night, Ben had been there to meet him. He had accepted the polite fiction about Martin's whereabouts without any badgering, because Ben knew Martin couldn't talk about his job. He'd kissed Martin, and taken him to bed, and said the words  _I love you_  again as he slid inside of him. Again, Martin had listened to those words said to him in the wrong voice, and closed his eyes, and said nothing. It was pointless to try to explain to Ben that he wasn't ever going to be able to reciprocate, because he was still in love with his dead college roommate whom he hadn't seen for twenty years. The best option was to stay silent.

His bed was empty the next morning when he woke, and judging by the terse note on his kitchen table and the toothbrush missing from his bathroom, he probably wouldn't be seeing Ben again. It was a shame, really, because he'd been a genuinely nice guy. And the sex had been adequate, for a while, but as usually happened, eventually he'd lost interest. It was enough to make him wonder if he'd really just been Cosmo-sexual all along.

 _Move on, Marty,_  he told himself, but even that thought came out in Cosmo's voice, in that broad Boston accent he remembered so well.

"I will when you will, Cos," he murmured into the silence.

* * *

Martin was still distracted by thoughts of Cosmo the next day, but a visit from potential clients with expensive shoes drew him out of his time warp. He tried to smile and look competent as he ushered Buddy Wallace and Dick Gordon into the conference room.

"Before we tell you about the job," said Dick, "there's something we'd like to clear up. Most firms of this type are staffed with ex-law enforcement types. But your team..."

"I know," chuckled Martin. "Kind of different."

"Yes, you are." Wallace wasn't laughing. He was glaring.

Martin's own smile quickly disappeared as they walked him through files they had on each of his teammates. Mother. Carl. Whistler. Crease. Each had had run-ins with law officials of one kind or another.

And then Wallace opened the file with  _Martin Bishop's_  name, his false name, on it, and Martin's heart stopped.

"He doesn't seem to have a past," said Wallace, peering at him over the empty file, tipping it to show him. Martin made himself take a long, slow breath.

"Sorry to waste your time, gentlemen," he said as evenly as he could manage. "I don't work for the government."

Dick did his best to convince Martin that they weren't there to tap his phone or overthrow another country, but discovering they were from the NSA wasn't really an improvement. "We're the good guys, Marty," he said cheerfully, which made Martin grit his teeth. Dick was clearly being a... well, Martin felt justified in his sarcasm.

But as they were walking out, he handed Martin a folded piece of paper, and said it. His  _real_  name.  _Mr. Brice._  The one he hadn't heard spoken in twenty-three years.

Martin stood there, frozen, while the two men departed. When he unfolded the paper, he saw his own face staring back at him.  _Martin Brice, wanted for computer and bank fraud, and interstate flight._ It wasn't the first time he'd seen the flyer, but it was still a bit of a shock. The moment he saw the picture with his twenty-year-old smile, that awful mustache, he couldn't help think of Cos.

 _Cos would probably say I should take this job_.  _No matter how risky it was._  The persistent thought drove Martin to visit their office the next day to gather more information.

Of course, no matter how much they might need this job, it didn't stop Martin from baiting Wallace and Dick with rude jokes about the NSA, because, well, a guy had to have  _some_  fun, right? He listened to the details. Janek, a mathematician at the Coolidge Institute, working on a secret project to create a little black box, for a company called Setec Astronomy.

"We need you to find the box," Dick said. "The FBI can't work for us without approval from a a congressional oversight committee. You managed to stay underground for over twenty years; that tells us you know how not to get caught."

It didn't really bother him that it the job was a little bit illegal. It was true, the money was a strong incentive. $175,000 distributed five ways would pay for a lot of... things that needed paid for, including their utilities for the past four months. But the offer to clean up Martin's record and eliminate the outstanding warrant for his arrest, well. That was hard to resist.

"Your pal Cosmo got twelve years," Wallace said, closing in on him from the left, while Dick moved to sit closer on his right. "And that was without the flight to avoid prosecution."

"We all know what happened to him in there," Dick added. As thought Martin needed a reminder. He could feel his options washing down the drain like so much sewage.

And he could hear Cos, right behind him, his hand on his back.  _Fuck these guys, Marty. Take the money. Take the offer - but take the money._

"It's an opportunity to come clean," Martin said aloud, navigating his way back to the office through the streets of San Francisco in his Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.

Cos's snort was audible.  _You want so desperately to be one of the good guys, Marty,_  he said in Martin's mind.  _You care way too much what other people think of you._

"I only care about what the important people think," he clarified. "Crease, Whistler, Mother, even Carl... they're going to be pissed that I've been lying to them all these years."

He was right. Crease just about walked right out when he told them, but not without taking an opportunity to yell at him about it first.

Martin tried to defend himself. "If you're wanted by the feds, you don't go around telling everybody. Especially a guy like me."

"We're not everybody, Martin; we're your  _partners,"_ Crease insisted. "You  _tell us."_

He nodded grimly. "Fine. Tell me, exactly why  _did_  you leave the CIA?" Crease had no response to that. "We all have our little secrets, don't we? Now, you guys have a decision to make... if you're going to help me out, or not."

But really, it wasn't a surprise to him when they said yes. And no matter how much they told him it was about the money, he knew the truth.  _Partners._  His team was the closest thing to a family he'd had since junior year of college. They would have his back, no matter what.

* * *

Actually, Martin thought Liz called it exactly right when she deemed it a  _club,_  though she definitely didn't mean it as a compliment _._  "It's a little boys' club, Bishop," she said. "You have your clubhouse... your secret handshake..."

Liz had been part of that  _club_ , kind of. He'd met her in a graduate lecture during his second attempt at a higher education, this time using the name Bishop, after he'd returned to the states. There were things Liz knew about him that no one else did, but it had been years since they'd seen one another. He almost laughed when the first thing Liz said when she saw him at the door was:  _We are not getting back together._

"I need your help," said Martin. "There's a mathematician named Gunther Janek, and he's giving a lecture. That's why I need you. To, uh, explain it to me."

"Read a book," she suggested, heading for the door.

"They found me, Liz."

That stopped her. She turned back to face him; the fear on her face was real. Martin wasn't telling her this to manipulate her, though he knew it would make her listen, if nothing else did. No matter what had happened between the two of them, she still cared about him.

He sighed. "They offered me a deal; if I do this job for them, they clear my name."

She regarded him coolly. "You and I are  _not_  getting back together."

"Hey, don't flatter yourself," he shot back.

That might have been a smile. "Pick me up at at six."

But he could hear Cos's incredulous laughter.  _What the hell, Marty? You haven't told her?_

The truth was, he never had - but he'd be surprised if she didn't already know. Because they'd been together for over a year, had actually dated and spent a good lot of time as a couple, including doing all the things a couple was  _supposed_  to do. It hadn't escaped his notice that all that time, he'd just been trying to convince himself he was wrong. That what he and Cosmo had had was just a fluke.

Cosmo's voice in his head sounded hurt as he exited her building.  _A fluke, huh? Is that what you think of me?_

"No," he said aloud. The girls entering Liz's piano studio gave him a strange look - and no wonder; he must have looked like this weird man, standing all alone on the stone steps, talking to himself. He waited for them to go by before whispering the rest. "No. You weren't."  _It's the rest of my life that's a fluke. You were the real thing._

Yes, even if he hadn't ever said the words  _you know, Liz, all those months we were together, I really should have been dating somebody with a Y chromosome,_ he thought she wouldn't be too surprised to find out that he hadn't dated another woman since they split up.

 _That'd probably make her feel good,_  Cos snickered, and Marty laughed, not caring who saw, because Cosmo had never met Liz,  _would_  never meet Liz, but his comment was spot-on.

And yeah, he knew, in reality, it wasn't Cosmo talking to him. It was just his own brain making him up, filling in the blanks of three months of friendship-kind-of-more with a simulacrum of Cosmo from long ago, combined with all the other men Marty had ever dated after his failed experiment with Liz.

"And there were a lot of them," he said, thinking of Ben, and all the ones before him. "But none of them were you."

 _Likewise, Marty._  He could almost feel Cosmo's fingers on his.  _I had a lot of discovery ahead of me. Prison's a hell of a place to be when you're just finding out you like guys._

Martin had to put out a hand to steady himself on his car under the force of the wave of guilt. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "God, Cos, I'm so sorry."

He heard no reply to that. There never was one.

* * *

Janek's math lecture was way over Martin's head, just as he'd expected. It wasn't that he wasn't smart, because, yeah, he had three letters after his name even though he wasn't using them. But Liz was far more familiar with contemporary mathematical trends, and he wasn't going to figure it out fast enough without someone to talk to. He could count on that, at least, with Liz.

But they had something else to talk about as well. And if she wasn't going to bring it up, he was. "You seeing anybody?" he whispered, right in the middle of Janek's talk. She shushed him.

"This isn't just about large-number theory, Bishop," she whispered back. "It's about cryptography."

He nodded. "Codes."

"I mean  _unbreakable_ codes." She paused, glancing back at Janek on the stage. "Are  _you_  seeing any-"

"Shh," he replied, his eyes fixed serenely on the stage. She pressed her lips together, but he thought maybe she was trying not to laugh. He relented, a little. "I am. Or, I was, for a few months, but I'm not sure if we're going to go out again." He left her to stew in that answer until Janek's talk was over.

They shuffled back to the lobby for refreshments. Liz' eyes followed Janek around the room, watching him ply the audience, speaking passionately about his topic. "The numbers are so unbelievably big," Janek was saying, "all the computers in the world could not break them down. But maybe, just maybe... there's a shortcut."

"I'll bet you anything he's found it." Her expression was unreadable. "If he has, you're in over your head. I'll get my coat."

Martin did what he did best: observe the crowd and look for patterns. There were half a dozen people wearing t-shirts for a left-wing political faction, although they didn't appear to be there together. Most spectators were there in with a guest, although there were a handful of women there alone and a larger handful of men.

 _But you're not scoping any of them out,_  Cos thought impassively in the back of his mind.  _Especially not that curly-haired kid in the back. He doesn't look anything like me, either._

"Shut up," he muttered under his breath, startling the woman next to him. In the throng of people surrounding Janek, most were taking notes, but he spotted three who were just listening. Could they have recording devices? He made sure to position himself away from them.

"Martin?" he heard in a gasp. "Oh, Martin - how wonderful to see you!" Suddenly he was engulfed in an enthusiastic, strangely familiar embrace. "Is it not fabulous?"

"Hi, Greg; how are you," he said, blinking, wondering how he could have missed the Russian. Gregor was hard to ignore. Martin listened to him chatter on about the new world order before redirecting him to Liz. She had the most polite glare of anybody he knew, but at least she could help interpret Janek's talk for him while Martin continued his surveillance.

 _He hasn't changed,_  came Cosmo's thoughtful murmur.  _He's just as shameless as ever._

"You have no idea," Martin muttered. But, of course, Cosmo  _did_ have an idea _,_ or at least the Cosmo in his head did. And Cosmo's laugh sure sounded real, and the warm feeling it inspired in his middle felt real - more real than being at a mathematical lecture with Liz and  _Gregor,_ anyway, after all these years. He shook his head in bemusement.

"Martin?" he heard Gregor call excitedly, as he appeared again beside him, this time with Liz in tow. "Kiev String Quartet plays at the consulate on Thursday night. You will be my guests."

Liz gave him a desperate appealing glance.  _Please, god, no,_  it said. He cleared his throat. "Really, Greg, I... wouldn't know how to repay you."

Greg's leer left nothing to the imagination. He scribbled something on the back of a business card. "Martin, now that our countries are such good friends...perhaps you will finally be able to do occasional favor for me?"

"Gregor, you are shameless," Liz teased, but it was a little too bright and cheery to be believable. She was out of practice.

Greg chuckled. "See you Thursday night."

Liz said something about not trusting him, but Martin wasn't worried. Greg was an old ally, and though he might not do everything by the book, his jugment was sound, and he was smarter than he pretended to be.  _I can play the doddering old queen, now that I'm old enough,_  Greg had once said to him, and that had been over four years ago.  _You're still young enough to be the brainless playboy. Keep that angle until a trick calls you Mister Bishop. At that point, you'll have to move to the absent-minded closeted businessman persona._

Martin's attention was caught by a woman interrupting Janek's conversation, and they made their way toward the exit. Liz tracked his gaze and sighed.

"You're going to follow him, aren't you?" she said softly. He didn't answer, and she gave a quick shake of her head. "It's okay. I'll get a cab."

Martin was left with a sudden sense of panic. He wasn't ready to say goodbye; he needed more time. His head was teeming with all the things he wished he could have said to her.  _Liz, my mother's in the nursing home with Alzheimer's, and I haven't heard a word from her that made sense since before Thanksgiving._ Or,  _Liz, remember that French restaurant we loved over in North Beach? It closed, and the chef is moving with his partner to Reno._ Or even,  _Liz, I've been having these imagined conversations with my dead friend Cosmo for the past fifteen years, and I think I might be going crazy._ But - it would all have to wait. Janek was already halfway down the hall, and Martin's team was waiting in the van in the back parking lot.

"Can I call you?" he asked.

Her expression was troubled. "Just be careful," she replied, and walked out the door.

Once he was actually in the van and had reported back to Crease, he felt a lot calmer. Mother was installed outside Janek's office window on a suspended cable, monitoring with binoculars and managing the audio pickup. Carl and Whistler would take care of casing the room and finding the black box. All he had to do was watch.

 _That Carl kid, he's pretty sharp,_  Cos whispered into his ear. Martin found himself bristling.

"A little young for you," he muttered. Crease gave him an odd look.

Martin wasn't at all sure Crease couldn't hear Cosmo's reply,  _No, he just looks a fair bit like you did in college._

"Computer," Carl was saying, "telephone, lamp, answering machine, a jar of pencils - but no little black box."

"It's got to be there somewhere." Martin took a turn at the eyepiece, watching Janek log into the computer, but before he could type anything useful, there was a knock at the door, and the woman from the lecture was there, Dr. Rhyzkov. She interrupted his work with some very unprofessional suggestions. "Huh... I didn't know you could do  _that_  in Mexico City."

Carl was instantly by his side. "Dr. Bishop, would you mind if I took a look?"

Cosmo's laugh was louder this time.  _Come on, Marty, give the boy a peek. He deserves a little amusement. How many girls do you think he's dated in his seventeen years?_

"Grow up," Crease chided Carl, but he nudged Martin away from the surveillance camera for a look of his own. Martin had to roll his eyes. He gave it up gracefully. There wasn't anything there for  _him_  to see, anyway.

They didn't get a good look at Janek typing his password, but upon review of the videotape back at the office and a lot of arguing from the team, Whistler cracked the location of the box using his powers of observation.

Martin made sure to congratulate him for that later. "I think I need to take some tips from you," he told Whistler ruefully. "I was so busy paying attention to the details that I didn't even notice Gregor in the crowd at Janek's lecture."

"Greg, huh?" Whistler grinned. "He always smelled like wintergreen lozenges. I bet he's appreciating the greater freedoms afforded by the political changes in his country, huh?"

"Well, I didn't get into details, but the fact that he was at the lecture at all says a lot." Martin's limited understanding of how things were for gay men in Russia seemed to indicate that it wasn't a whole lot different from the United States in the 1960s. He suspected Gregor managed to get by on a good dose of bravado and bluster, and a whole lot of loneliness.

_That sounds an awful lot like your life, Marty._

"I'm not lonely," he protested under his breath, as Mother fit him with the LTX-71 concealable microphone he'd be wearing during the next stage of the job. "I've got the team."

_Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. And you're talking to your dead lover._

It was a fair point, but Martin wasn't going to concede. He thought about it, though, all through the carefully scripted dance in the lobby of Janek's hotel, with Carl playing the part of UPS deliveryman and Mother trimming hedges outside. Here, Martin wore a suit and bore a bouquet of balloons, but he could feel the weight of the role he was really playing. He could have written his own personal ad.  _Middle-aged gay bachelor seeks imaginary relationship with deceased computer engineer. Must have questionable morals, a wicked sense of humor and a hell of a talented mouth._

But the lure of finally clearing his name, of being able to go back to who he'd been and finally set a few things right, drove him on. It wasn't until he actually laid his hands on the black box that he dared to think they might actually pull this off.

Even the unexpected appearance of Dr. Rhyzkov didn't throw him after that. The lies came easily, flowing off his tongue:  _Who do you think paid for your little love jaunt to Mexico City?_

Because Cosmo was right, of course. His whole life was a lie. Inventing a persona on the spot was the game he played every day. With the support of his team, he led Rhyzkov through the story.  _You and me, we're just pawns in this ugly little game. Be a beacon in his sad and lonely life. If you really love him, never let him know you know what he thinks you don't know._

"And give him head whenever he wants," added Whistler blithely. Martin was distracted enough by his thoughts that he almost repeated that one aloud, which made Cosmo cackle for several seconds.

"Give him head?" he muttered into the LTX-71 as he carried the little black box out.

"Be a beacon?" mimicked Whistler, and Martin could hear the whole team cracking up.

 _Oh, I do like him,_  Cos said, still chuckling.

"That's because you're still twelve years old," he snapped.

"What was that, Bish?" Whistler asked through his giggles.

Martin sighed. "Nothing. I'll meet you at the rendezvous point with the box."

He left the goods with the team in the van and drove himself back to the office, stopping at Safeway for margarita mix, helium balloons and those little tiny sausages Mother liked.

"What'cha celebrating?" asked the checkout girl brightly as she scanned his purchases.

 _Yeah, Marty,_  wondered Cos,  _what's the lie going to be tonight?_

He gave her a dazzling smile. "Our latest successful heist, planned by the National Security Agency."

She laughed. "Secret agents, huh?"

"Oh, no," he assured her. "We're the good guys."

He told himself it was just a whim to call Liz and invite her over, but he was pretty sure he'd been planning to do it all along. "We got it," he said. "Come over and gloat with us. We can afford the good tequila, tonight."

"You sure know how to woo a girl, Martin," she drawled. "I don't think I could resist an invitation like that." She hesitated, then added, "It's the shortcut, isn't it?"

"I guess," he said. "Whatever it does, it's out of my hands. I don't give a shit if it's the Ark of the Covenant. They're clearing my  _name,_  Liz. This is a real celebration. Bring your dancing shoes."

* * *

The party was precisely what Martin needed. He watched Liz dancing with Whistler and Mother with a pleasant combination of amusement and pride.  _It's my family,_  thought his slightly inebriated brain.  _Now that Liz is here, it's almost complete._

"You were inspired tonight, Bish," Carl said, in his solemn almost-grown-up manner, pouring himself some punch. "Or should I call you  _Dr. Brice?"_

"Don't," Martin shuddered. "I'll stick with Bishop for now. Hard to give up something you've used for over twenty years."

Carl nodded wisely. "You've been doing this a long time, I guess. You and... the guy, your friend in college? The one who got caught?"

"Cosmo," he said, the name feeling strange on his tongue. The last time he'd said it aloud, before telling his story to the team this week, had been in the dead of night following a particularly vivid dream.

 _You were moaning it over and over, Marty,_  Cos assured him.  _Long before you woke up._

"Cosmo," Carl repeated. "Yeah, him. Sounds like you did some big jobs."

"He was even more of a risk-taker than I was," Martin agreed. "But I think we were pretty well-matched when it came to crazy schemes."

Carl thought about this, sipping his punch. "One thing I don't quite get, though... you and Cosmo, you were taking all these big chances. What for?"

"We were young. And there was a war on." He observed Carl's blank expression, and sighed, shrugging. "What do you want, Carl? It was a good way to meet girls?"

"Uh..." said Carl, clearly confused, because as far as  _he_  knew, Martin was gay. But Liz just laughed.

"It worked on me," she said. "You were so suave and dangerous. Martin Bishop, secret agent."

"How come  _you_  didn't get caught?" asked Mother.

 _Such a good question,_  Cos said.  _Let's hear the answer, since you're being so truthful tonight._

Martin grimaced, unable to meet Liz' frank gaze. "I went out for pizza. Then I went to Canada." There was an awkward pause. He sighed. "I was lucky. He wasn't."

"Did he ever forgive you?" Whistler asked.

"I hope so." He served himself some of the little sausages, feeling all their eyes on him now. "He died in prison."

They didn't ask the important questions, the ones that still haunted his worst nightmares, which was just as well.  _Didn't you try to contact him?_  was one.  _How could you have done that to your best friend?_ was another.

 _I didn't mean to,_  was his only pitiful reply to the latter. As for the former, well, he had. Though he never knew if his letters made it through, or even if Cosmo recognized them for what they were, disguised as they were in care packages from fictional prison support agencies.

 _I got them,_  his pretend-Cosmo replied, and Martin suspected that was probably the truth. Cosmo had been sharp, a good observer, and wouldn't have been fooled by the artificial philanthropic packaging.

"You were always good at that," Martin told him under his breath, chewing his sausage. "You would have loved what we do."

 _You bet your ass I would have,_  Cos said, making Martin smile.  _You and me, Marty. We would have changed the world._

Martin tried to change the subject by asking everyone what they were going to do with their share of the money. Crease and his wife were going to travel Europe; Mother wanted a Winnebago. But Carl... he had a different plan.

"I'd like to have a deep relationship with a beautiful woman," he said through a lungful of helium, making them all laugh, "who melts from the very first time our eyes meet."

"You're not getting paid that much, Carl," Martin assured him.

He shrugged. "Well, you know... someone like Liz."

Martin raised an eyebrow. "You're definitely not getting paid that much."

They all made  _oooh_ ing sounds, and she looked appropriately offended as she slapped his shoulder. But she saw him clearly, and apparently she was the only one who did. Later, she drew him aside.

"What's going on, Bishop?" she asked, a hand on his arm. "The comments? Having me over tonight? I told you, we are not getting back together."

"I know we're not, Liz," Martin assured her. "Trust me, I stopped fooling myself a long time ago. You're way too good for me."

She echoed Cosmo's derisive snort with her own eye roll. "Please. That doesn't have anything to do with it."

"I notice you didn't deny it, though," he said, trying for a grin. Her hand tightened on his arm, and suddenly he felt like crying. He swallowed to try to clear the lump in his throat.

"Bish," she said softly.

"I haven't dated a woman since I broke up with you," he said. "The team, they all know... who I am. It's not a secret."

"No." She looked at the floor. "It wasn't a secret then, either." At his nod, she took a long breath. "It was Cosmo, wasn't it?"

It was hard enough to hear Carl say his name, but for Liz to say it was nothing short of torture. He flinched away.

"It was always Cosmo," he said, in a voice barely audible.

 _How touching,_  Cos taunted.  _How about you buy me a BFF locket and leave it on my unmarked grave._

"Okay." She gave him an inquisitive look. "So... if that's the way it is, what  _am_  I doing here?"

"Because you're part of the team, Liz," he said. "Because you love this stuff as much as I do, and you know it. Because we shouldn't be doing it without you."

She was already shaking her head. "Oh, no... no. I  _like_  my orderly life, Bish. I  _like_  getting eight hours of sleep a night and dressing in heels. I  _like_  knowing I'm going to be alive to attend the symphony on Friday."

"You like being a piano teacher better than you like the chase? The puzzle, the risk?" He gave her a skeptical frown. "I don't buy it, Liz. I think, even after all these years, I know you better than that."

"You think so?" She regarded him coolly, but she wasn't letting go of his arm. "I'm not here for the puzzle, Bish; I'm here for _you._  You're not the only one who sees clearly. I see  _you._  You're even less happy than you were six years ago."

"You think you can make me happy, Liz?" He shook his head. "Even if I weren't..."

"Weren't what?" she pressed, when he trailed off. "Weren't in love with somebody else?"

 _Still. Always._ He mirrored her grip on her other arm with a frustrated sigh. "Weren't  _gay,_  Liz. I'm  _gay."_

"I  _know,_ " she said, in the same tone, and he chuckled. Suddenly she hugged him, fiercely.

"Thank you," she said, muffled by his shirt. "For telling me. I knew, but... I wanted to hear you say it."

"Yeah. You deserved that, at least." He pulled back far enough to look into her eyes. Her cheeks were wet. "Well... if you don't really care about puzzles, I suppose I couldn't entice you into a game of Scrabble."

She pursed her lips. "You might. But be prepared for me to beat the pants off you, and anyone else in your little boys' club who wants to play."

* * *

Martin discovered Liz wasn't kidding about kicking his butt at Scrabble. She also wouldn't concede the existence of his word SCRUNCHY. "It's the thing you use in your hair, to make a ponytail," he insisted.

Whistler might have been able to give her a run for her money, blind or not, but he wasn't interested in Scrabble tonight. He and Carl were poking at the little black box and bandying about possible meanings for the name Setec Astronomy.

"Special extraterrestrial..." Carl offered.

"... earthling counter," finished Whistler, with a little shiver.

 _They could be on to something,_  Cos mused.  _Southeastern terraforming earth corps?_

Martin would have laughed, but suddenly he heard the name. Setec. He said it aloud, and realized why it sounded funny. "Setec doesn't mean anything."

He dumped all the Scrabble tiles out on the glass table, picking out the letters he needed while Crease and Liz watched, baffled. He shuffled them around, making anagrams of the letters.

"MONTEREYS COAST," he muttered. He raised his voice. "Does Montereys Coast mean anything to you guys?"

"No," came the general agreement. Neither did MY SOCRATES NOTE or COOTYS RAT SEMEN. But Martin knew better than to ignore a hunch. Cos was oddly silent through the process.

He nudged the tiles into place a fourth time. "TOO MANY SECRETS," he murmured.

"Bish?" Whistler's voice was high and tense. "I... think you better come over here."

Martin came over and watched, with dawning understanding, as Whistler consulted Carl's little black book for something impossible to access. "Federal Reserve Transfer Node, Culpepper, Virginia," he suggested. It all sounded startlingly, achingly familiar.

"We won't get in," said Carl. "It's encrypted."

Only they did get in, with one touch of the contact from Janek's little black box. There was no way they could resist trying it out a few more times, but Martin could already see the dominos falling, the house of cards tumbling - whatever metaphor he wanted to use, he could see things going to shit.

"Anybody want to shut down the Federal Reserve?" asked Whistler, with a nervous giggle.

"Turn it off," snarled Crease. They stared at each other in the silence.

Carl bit his nail. "So it's a code-breaker."

"No." Martin shook his head. "It's _the_ code-breaker." He took a careful breath. "No more secrets."

 _It's the holy grail of hacking, Marty,_ Cos whispered.

Crease sent his wife and daughter Melissa home after that, but when Liz tried to follow them, he put out a restraining hand.

"No." Liz shook her head with a faint, incredulous smile. "I'm getting my bag, and I'm leaving. So relax, Crease."

But Crease was adamant. "I'll relax when we get that damn thing out of here. Until then, you stay." His voice dropped. "There isn't a government on this planet that wouldn't kill us all for that thing."

She clearly didn't like it, but she didn't argue with him anymore after that. "Thank you for the trust, fellas," she muttered, letting Martin lead her to the couch. He propped himself up on one end while she curled up on the other, her stockinged feet tucked under his leg.

Martin suspected no one slept well, but they all slept. Except possibly Crease; every time Martin woke up, he was sitting nearly motionless in the green leather chair, eyes on the door. He supposed CIA training was good for something.

"Bad dreams?" Crease asked. He wondered how Crease had noticed Martin was awake. Perhaps his breathing had changed; he'd never know for sure.

"Not exactly," Martin said. They'd been the same familiar dreams, and although they were somewhat melancholy, under no circumstances could they be considered  _bad._  Disturbing, possibly. Erotic, definitely. He shifted uneasily on the couch, unwilling to bother Liz's sleeping form to ease the pressure on his erection.

Crease was silent for long enough that Martin thought he wasn't going to say anything else. But eventually, he turned toward him, his expression determined.

"You wouldn't have hesitated to use this box, if you'd had it back then," he said. "You and your friend."

The word  _friend_  wasn't said any differently; Crease didn't load it with innuendo or sarcasm, but Martin could sense his implication all the same. He heard Crease's earlier words.  _We're your partners, Martin. You_ _ **tell**_ _us._

"No," he agreed. "Cos and me, we would have used it in a heartbeat. But back then, nothing was encrypted anyway. They just didn't know any better. We were blind-dialing with a 300 baud modem and a list of numbers I swiped from my dad's office."

Crease's gaze didn't waver. "You would have made it an act of charity, rather than terrorism, Martin, but... it would have been illegal, all the same. And you would have been caught, just like Cosmo was. Just like you almost were."

"I've  _almost_  been caught a million times." He gazed right back, though he could barely see Crease's eyes in the dimness of the room. "I never let that stop me. And this job isn't exactly legal, either."

"You know what I'm saying. It wasn't your fault that he was caught, and you weren't."

"It doesn't make any difference," said Martin dully. "I got away. Cosmo didn't. He spent twelve years in prison and died there. They took away his whole life."

Crease shook his head. "He gave it away, when he broke the law. You know how this works, Martin. He knew the risk he was taking."

"He was  _twenty years old,_  Don," he whispered. "He didn't know  _shit._  He was brilliant and beautiful and they took his life, as surely as they would have if they'd pulled the trigger and shot him dead right there in the mainframe room."

"Bish," Crease said, his face softening, and Martin realized he was crying. After an awkward moment, Crease dug into his pocket and silently handed over his handkerchief. Martin wiped his eyes.

"I never spoke to him again." He stared at the coffee table between them. "I... regret that."

Crease nodded. "Understood. Still. It wasn't your fault. I suspect he would have agreed with me."

Martin couldn't say  _he never told me that, though_ , because that made absolutely no sense, even to himself. So he just nodded. Don could believe what he was saying if he wanted to. There was absolutely no way he could ever prove it.

* * *

The handoff was at nine. Martin drove out to the agreed location, a restaurant they both knew under the Bay bridge, and got out with the box while Crease remained in the car.

There they were, Tweedledum and Tweedlegrumpy, smiling and frowning like a perfectly matched set of Good Cop and Bad Cop. "Morning," said Dick sunnily. "Any problems?"

 _Aside from the fact that I spent the night sitting up at the end of the couch in my office._ "Nope."

"Want a cappuccino?"

Martin set the briefcase on the table. "No." Dick reached for it, snapping the latches and opening the answering machine case to reveal the black box. He smiled.

"Got his check?" he asked Wallace. Wallace opened his own briefcase, reaching inside.

"Hey, Martin!" called Crease. "Telephone."

"Just a minute," Martin called back.

Crease waggled the receiver at him from the car. "It's your  _mother."  
_  
Martin's stomach did a slow roll. He tried to make the glance at Wallace look casual. "She's, uh... she's old," he explained. "Excuse me." He stood, slowly, and walked back to the car, leaving the briefcase behind.

"Get in the car," said Crease through gritted teeth.

"What?"

"Get in the car," he repeated.

"But I didn't get the money," Martin protested.

"Now!" growled Crease. He barely got the door closed, peeling away from the curb.

"What are you doing?" Martin shouted. "I didn't get the money!"

Crease tossed the newspaper on his lap. "Janek's dead."

Martin stared at the paper and felt the same, slow sense of unreality as he had the day before, upon seeing the flyer with his name and face. 'They killed him."

"The NSA doesn't kill people, Martin. Who are they?

"You said yourself there isn't a government on earth that wouldn't kill for that thing."

"Not  _our_  government!" hissed Crease. "Who were those guys?"

Martin made a U-turn and headed back toward Dick and Wallace's office building. It shouldn't have been a surprise to find it being demolished, but it was, which indicated just how out of touch he was. He wanted to stomp around and yell.  _You said you were the good guys. Why is nothing ever what it seems to be?_

 _You can't trust anyone these days,_  Cos murmured, but Martin wasn't listening.

* * *

Martin's only tuxedo was about ten years out of date, but it was good enough for the Kiev String Quartet, and it had a built-in hidden shoulder holster. He only needed to be there long enough to get some answers from Gregor, anyway, and then he could be out of there.

 _How are you going to get him to talk to you?_ Cos wanted to know.

"Oh, trust me," he muttered. "I'll be persuasive."

_It'd go faster if you just started by pulling your gun on him._

By the time Martin arrived at the concert, he'd convinced himself it had been his plan all along. No matter that he could feel Cos gloating in the back of his mind.

"Keep smiling," he said, leaning over Greg's back, letting him feel the pressure of the muzzle in his ribs. "Excuse yourself."

Greg's expression was startled, but also resigned. He smiled graciously at his date and followed Martin to a quiet room off the lobby.

"Give me back Janek's box, Greg," he said quietly.

"Martin." He shook his head. "I don't have it. You must believe me. We had nothing to do with this Janek business. Not for lack of trying, mind you." One eyebrow went up. "Your codes are entirely different from ours. We never had any luck in breaking them so Lord knows, I wanted that box... but we did not take it."

 _So much for your powers of persuasion,_  said Cos dryly. "Then who did?"

Gregor's normally expressive face drew in, became still and solemn. "What I will tell you now, I cannot tell you in this building. Do you understand?" He beckoned him. "Come."

Martin paused. This was Gregor. There wasn't any reason for him not to trust him. Greg had given him help when things were quite a bit harder for Russian agents. And yet.

 _What kind of world do you want to live in, Marty?_  Cos asked. His voice was gentle. Martin wanted to take a bath in that voice.  _The one in which you can believe what former Soviet agents tell you? Or the one in which you stay out of jail and live to see dawn? That's what it comes down to._

"Martin." Greg was waiting, his hand still outstretched. "You must trust me."

"I can live in both those worlds," he whispered. "You won't make me choose now. I never have before."

_Fine. Don't come crying to me if you end up in somebody's trunk._

He took Greg's hand, let him slip his arm around his waist. "We'll get to the bottom of this."

"You're not hitting on me, are you? Because that could very well have been an innuendo."

"Trust me, Martin." Gregor smiled. "When I'm hitting on you, you'll know."

He led them to the consulate car, which drove them around and around in the rain while they paged through books of grainy black-and-white photographs.

"I'm afraid these books are not as current as they used to be," Greg said apologetically. "These are just the ones we thought we could turn. You know, sexual problems, financial troubles. Some of them are undesirables, just like us, Martin. I'm sure I appear in the books your own government keeps."

Martin flipped a page. "We don't have books like this."

 _You keep telling yourself that, Marty,_  said Cos. He could just see him shaking his head.  _Such a Boy Scout._

"Boy Scouts aren't allowed to be gay, Cos," he sighed. Greg gave him a funny look, and no wonder, but he continued turning pages. Martin stopped him when they got to a face he recognized.

"That's him. The older guy."

Gregor grimaced. "A loathsome man named Buddy Devries, a.k.a. Buddy Weber... Buddy Wallace.

He nodded. "Wallace. That's him."

Greg browsed the notes on the card. "We tried to recruit him in '83. Drinking problem, married three times. Left the NSA four years ago." He paused, then swallowed. "Oh, my."

"What?" Greg just shook his head. "What?" he said again.

There was no trace of a smile left on Greg's face. "You disappeared once before, my friend. I suggest you do it again."

Something in his voice made Martin's blood run cold. "Why? Who's he working for?"

Lights tailed them, and the wail of a siren signalled for them to pull over. Greg sighed. "Your FBI is such a pain in the ass." He spoke sharply in Russian to his driver.

"Who's he working for?" Martin insisted.

Greg took his hands, gazing into his eyes. "Martin, I can offer you asylum inside this car. Technically, it's part of the consulate. Do you wish our protection?

"What?" Martin felt the panic begin.  _This is not going to turn out well._ "Who is Wallace working for?"

There was a knock on the window; the driver rolled it down. "Mr. Bishop? My name is Special Agent Bestrop, FBI. Please, step out of the vehicle."

"Do you wish our protection?" Greg whispered once more.

"Mr. Bishop..." Bestrop's voice was chilly. "Get out of the vehicle now."

Greg clutched at his hand as he moved to comply. His eyes were regretful. "You won't know who to trust."

"The world hasn't changed as much as you think it has, Greg," Martin sighed. "I don't think I can assume they won't persecute me for the things I've done with men, any more than you would hesitate to red-flag Wallace there for being married three times." He eyed the agents outside the car.  _So much for clearing my name._

He inclined his head. "I regret I could not help you more." A ghost of a kiss landed on Martin's cheek as he clambered past his stylishly clad pant legs.

The agents escorted him out of the car. "Mr. Bishop, step over here, please. Hands on the wall, sir." It didn't take much for them to find the gun in his shoulder holster.

Bestrop took the gun, raising a surprised eyebrow at him. "Is this loaded?"

He sighed. "Yes."

 _Marty,_  Cos whispered. He sounded so disappointed.  _Never hand another man a loaded gun unless you would trust him with your life. You can't trust this guy any further than you can kick him._

By now, Martin knew it was true, of course. He knew it long before Bestrop, or whatever his name really was, pulled on the black glove, took the gun into his hand and shot Gregor in the head through the door of the consulate car. When the driver scrambled out and tried to escape down the street, Bestrop shot him, too. He calmly deposited the gun on the sidewalk.

"Too many secrets," he said. Martin stared at him, too incredulous for words.

That was just before Wallace came up from behind and clubbed him in the head with the butt of his gun, and the world went dark.

* * *

Cosmo sounded particularly superior when Martin woke up in the trunk.  _What did I tell you?_

"Fuck you," he moaned, rubbing his head. At least they hadn't tied him up. He fumbled in his pocket for a book of matches, and lit one to get a look around. Yep, trunk. Dark. No discernible tools. That's as far as he got before the match burned down.

_We never got to do that, Marty. One of the greatest regrets of my admittedly short life._

"Mine, too." He put a hand up to gauge the dimensions of the compartment.

 _Are you paying attention? Where are they taking you?_  Now Cos was definitely teasing.  _You're going to be late for the ball, Marty._

"I didn't bring my shoes anyway." Trunk was too deep for a foreign car. Might be the consulate car, actually. Wouldn't want to waste a perfectly good unmarked car.

 _I can't believe he hit you over the head._ He still sounded regretful.  _I was very clear that he needed to stick to non-essential areas below the neck._

"You - what?" Martin tried to sit up and immediately banged his head on the roof of the trunk. "Fuck!"

_It's funny what you get when you hire ex-government agents. He's just the sort of self-righteous prick I love to bait, but he's so damn predictable, it's almost a pointless exercise._

"Cos, what are you - what the hell are you talking about?" Martin wanted to stand up and shout at the voice in his head, because the voice was supposed to be  _his head,_  dammit, and none of this shit was stuff he was making up. Of course, he had to be, but -

 _Okay, calm down,_  he told himself.  _Really. What the hell's going on here?_

 _Talking to yourself, Marty?_  Cos sounded genuinely concerned.  _It's the first sign of madness._

"You just -  _shut up."_  Martin felt the tears gathering, choking him from the neck down. He screwed up his hand into fists. "You're a figment of my imagination. You don't get to tell me what to do, so just  _stop talking,_  because you're  _dead,_  okay? You fucking went to  _prison_ twenty-three years ago, and you never wrote back, and then you  _died._  And I never - I never got to -"

He stalled, stopped, felt his body shaking with the frustration and anguish of all those missed opportunities, all the things he always wanted to tell Cosmo, but never could in any of his letters, and now  _never would,_ because he would never see Cosmo again.

The silence in the trunk was oppressive after that, but Martin could only hear the seams in the concrete, slipping by like a song,  _ne-ver, ne-ver, ne-ver._ There wasn't anything he could do about it but lie there, alone in the dark.

Later he heard a cocktail party, which was only slightly less crazy than hearing his dead lover, so he rolled with it.

When the trunk opened at last, he blinked up into Buddy Wallace's flashlight, and he could only roll his eyes and sigh. "Oh, shit."

Wallace almost grinned. "What are you doin' up?" Then there was another severe blow to the face, and more darkness - without dreams this time, which, honestly, was almost welcome.

* * *

Martin woke up upside-down. It was dark, not as oppressively dark as it had been in the trunk, and there was air around his face. He wasn't claustrophobic, but he thought he might be  _now,_  after what had just happened. Maybe it was justified, now.

 _It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you, huh?_  he said to Cos in that space in his head, but Cosmo said nothing. He remembered he'd told Cosmo to shut up. It wasn't as though he'd never done that before, but this time, it seemed to have worked. Martin wasn't quite sure what to think about that.

His head hurt, still, and now his mouth hurt, too. He tongued an abrasion on his lip and came up tasting blood. Then he focused on the picture ahead of him, and realized it was the Hindenburg, crashing.  _What kind of sick sense of humor would you need to bother to print that, matte and frame it, and hang it in your office?_  he wondered.

He did appear to be in some kind of office. There was an enormous fish tank on one wall, swimming with two enormous leopard sharks. There was something important in that, Martin knew, but he couldn't think what it was, at the moment. His head hurt too much. He winced and attempted to sit up. For a moment, he regretted it, feeling his stomach roll, and considered lying down again.

Then he saw the figure seated across from him, and he froze, as much as he had any kind of reactions left at all in this nauseated, pain-fuzzed state. The man wore a suit, and even in the dark he could tell it was an expensive suit. His face was in shadow. Martin could see a fringe of slicked-back hair.

"Pain?" he asked, his voice slightly familiar.

Martin squinted, trying to resolve the blurred image. He nodded slightly.

The figure rose and walked toward him, until he could see the details of his face. The mouth curved down at the corners, but it seemed to be smiling. He had a large, beaky nose and prominent ears, or perhaps that was just the slicked-back hair. But Martin saw the intense brown eyes, and after that, he couldn't look away. He knew those eyes.

"Try aspirin," said the man, holding out the bottle in one hand, and he  _definitely_ knew those hands, no matter how much darker and rougher they were. The nails were manicured. He wore a silver ring on the pinky finger of his left hand, a ring he'd worn in college. He'd told Martin that he'd gotten it for his bar mitzvah, and back then when he'd been thirteen it had fit on his ring finger, but later he'd had to move it to his pinky because his hands had grown so fast. It had been the kind of joke he could tell Martin in front of the other guys in the dorm, joking about the size of his hands, because of course Martin knew what it meant when you had big hands - and the joke was on everybody else, because it was  _true._

He took the bottle in his right hand, hiding it, and held out both hands in fists, palms down, for Martin to choose one.  _Where's the aspirin, Marty?_  he could almost hear in his head. But the man before him had a slightly different voice, one that was as much rougher and darker as his hands had become.

Martin gaze up at the man he knew. The man he didn't know at all. The man he had once been able to see in his dreams, and eventually the memory had faded to nothing but vagueness and details: his mouth, his eyes, his hands.

"Cosmo," he said, and he was relieved that his voice came out thoughtful, no matter what kind of thoughts and feelings were roiling around in his head, in the space where Cosmo's voice had resided for the last twenty-three years. Only now, Cosmo would never speak in that voice again, because Cosmo was  _here,_  speaking to him in a different voice.

_Cosmo was here, speaking to him._

Cos opened his left hand, unbidden, and held out the aspirin bottle for Martin to take. "I'm sorry if he hurt you," he said. The more words Martin heard in his new, vaguely-familiar voice, the more it made sense, the more it fit with Cosmo's old voice. He was starting to hear  _his_  Cosmo in this new Cosmo. "I'm afraid Wallace doesn't like you very much."

Martin tracked Cosmo as he approached, circling him in careful, neat movements. His gaze softened. "Yeah," he said, answering the unspoken question Martin had asked with his eyes:  _Are you real? Is this really happening, or - are you just a very three-dimensional and realistic part of my twenty-three-year-old delusion?_

Martin opened his mouth, attempting to carry on as usual, because the alternative was just too much to contemplate. "You ought to have that guy checked for rabies."

"Rabies occurs only in warm-blooded animals." The sentence was said with complete serenity, but Martin almost laughed anyway, because it was exactly Cosmo's sense of humor. He felt the most horrible blooming sensation of delight. Cosmo sat down next to him. Martin had to glance around to be certain no one had trained a camera on him. Of course, knowing Cosmo, somebody probably  _had._

"Anyway," Cos went on, entirely matter-of-fact, "I couldn't have you talking to the Russians. Five years ago, yes, we could trust them not to go running to the FBI, or if they did, we could trust the FBI not to believe them. Today..." He smiled, his eyes alight. "...we can't trust anybody."

Martin felt the panic swelling up inside him, too powerful to ignore. The questions he wanted to ask were immediate, life-changing questions. He couldn't ask them, so he chose something slightly less confusing to start with.

"What the hell's going on here?" Martin whispered. "Cosmo,  _what happened?"_

"The world changed on us, Marty," said Cos, "and without our help." He sounded vaguely insulted by this.  _How dare they play without us?_  Martin could supply, in Cosmo's old voice, but he tried not to. It was too clearly something he was making up, now.

"What happened?" he repeated. Cosmo sat there, inches from his face, drinking him in. He gave a brief, amused laugh. Martin almost reached for him, but Cos beckoned him with his chin to stand and walk with him. Martin followed him carefully, partly because he was still woozy, but mostly because he wasn't quite sure he could trust this Cosmo not to disappear.

"There I was in prison," said Cos as they walked. "And one day I help some nice older gentlemen make some free phone calls. They turn out to be, let us say, good family men."

"Organized crime?" Martin said, and now he really was incredulous, because Cosmo had always had a distaste for the mob.

He barked a laugh. "Don't kid yourself. It's not that organized. Anyway, they arranged for me to get an early release from my unfortunate incarceration, and I began to perform a variety of services." He tapped a key on the computer keyboard near his hand, and a screen lit up, displaying a spreadsheet.

"You got  _out?"_  Martin whispered. He was unreasonably, suddenly  _hurt_.  _And you didn't come find me?_

Cosmo's face hardened, but he went on with his story as though Martin hadn't said anything. "For starters, I reorganized their entire financial operation. Budgets, payroll, money laundering, you name it. And the whole network is protected by a very powerful encryption system, so the government can't read it."

The nauseated feeling in his stomach became a sinking feeling as he realized where Cos was going. "But if the feds get Janek's box..."

With one tap of his fingers, the screen went dark. "Disaster. Therefore, we must have it."

"To protect the organization," prodded Martin.

"Yes."

Martin shook his head. "No. I don't buy it." Cosmo laughed in surprise, and Martin couldn't suppress the answering smile. "I  _know_  you." And of course, he did. He knew Cosmo as well now as he ever had. Cos had lived in his head, all these years, for a reason. There was no way he could pretend it hadn't meant something to him. Only now, Cosmo would know it too, for real.

"God, it's good to see you," Cos said, gazing at Martin, his voice rough with emotion.

Martin swallowed his response as Cos put a finger to his lips, glancing at the ceiling. Of course people were listening. Cosmo walked beside him toward the glassed-in booth housing the mainframe in the corner.

"We were going to change the world, Marty," he whispered. "Remember? Did you ever get around to actually doing it? No, I guess not. Well, I think I can."

Martin raised an eyebrow as Cos opened the door for him. "Really?

"Yes." His face was suffused with conviction, and Martin couldn't do much more than believe him. Cosmo closed the door to the booth behind him. They were free to say what they wanted to say, now, without anyone hearing them.

The question was, what should he say? This man -  _Cosmo,_  his fevered brain supplied,  _remember, the one who made you come so hard just three days ago, in your dream? -_  this man had paid Buddy Wallace to capture Martin and bring him here. He had probably hired the men who had pretended to be FBI agents, who had stopped Gregor's car, and shot Greg in the head. He gritted his teeth. How could he justify saying - what he  _wanted_  to say - to a man like that?

Cosmo sat down on the case of the mainframe, and Martin sank down beside him. "What's wrong with this country, Marty? Money. You taught me that. Evil defense contractors had it, noble causes did not. Politicians are bought and sold like so much chattel. Our problems multiply. Pollution, crime, drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, despair. We throw gobs of money at them. The problems always get worse. Why is that?"

Martin stared at him with a helpless smile. It was as though the last twenty-three years hadn't existed. Here was Cosmo, completely unchanged from the boy he'd lived with, had dreamed of changing the world with. Had loved, for weeks before he could say it. Had never said it. Cosmo had, though, and that had been enough. Until now. Now, he had a chance to say it,  _really_  say it, not just to a pretend Cosmo in his head, but to the  _real_ man, the man who sat here beside him, close enough to touch.  _I could touch him right now,_  he told himself. The idea was enough to make him feel faint.

But Cosmo was on a roll. "Money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to do bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."

"I agree," Martin said evenly. "Now,  _who_  did you say you were working for?"

Cosmo shook his head impatiently. "That's just my day job. Listen: while in prison, I learned everything in this world, including money operates not on reality..."

"... but the perception of reality," finished Martin. Seeing Cosmo's pleased smile was the sweetest experience Martin had had in - well, possibly in twenty-three years.

Then Cosmo's expression went crafty. "Posit: People think a bank might be financially shaky."

Martin crossed his arms, responding immediately with, "Consequence: People start to withdraw their money.

"Result: Soon, it is financially shaky."

"Conclusion: You can make banks fail."

Cosmo cut him off. "Try again. I've already done that. Maybe you've read about a few? Think bigger."

Martin laughed incredulously. "Stock market?"

"Yes."

"Currency market? Commodities market?"

"Yes."

"Small countries?"

Cosmo's nod was confident. "I might even be able to crash the whole damn system. Destroy all records of ownership. Think of it, Marty. No more rich people, no more poor people, everybody's the same. Isn't that what we said we always wanted?"

Martin paused. "Cos, you haven't gone crazy on me, have you?" But, really, who was he to talk? He'd been having a two-decade-long conversation with this man, had been dreaming about doing things to him he'd never been able to do. That wasn't the hardest thing to believe. It was the most unbelievable thing that  _he was here._

Cosmo's face changed. He looked indignant now. "Who do you think this was all  _for?_ Would I do it for my father? Myself? For the assholes in prison? No." He reached out and touched Martin's hand. His fingers were warm and dry. "It was for you, Marty."

 _No,_  he wanted to say, but he couldn't. He swallowed on a dry throat. "How could that be? You never even  _called_  me? Cos, I thought... I thought you were  _dead._ "

"I'm close," Cos whispered. "I'm close to really doing it, and it had to be just right." He stroked fingers over Martin's skin. "I needed it to be  _right._  You always knew just how it should be. Now... god, Marty, you'll never believe what I've accomplished."

Their fingers linked, and Martin caught his breath at the sensation, and the expression in Cosmo's dark eyes. "I'm not surprised about that," he said. "You were always brilliant. You can do anything."

"I have,"Cosmo said, chuckling. "I've done  _anything._  It's not just possible anymore." He cupped Martin's face, closing his eyes momentarily, rocked by the experience. "I'm actually changing the world."

Martin laughed. "You  _are_  crazy," he breathed, leaning into Cosmo's touch, because it was just as unbelievable a sensation as it he remembered it being. Cosmo jerked his hand away, looking offended, and a little obstinate.

"Is that right?" he murmured. "Watch me."

Then he leaned in, full against Martin's chest, pressing him into the mainframe cabinet, and kissed him. This was, perhaps, the most unbelievable part of this whole mind-blowing day, but Martin wasn't letting it go. He clutched Cosmo to him, fisting his hands in Cos' expensive suit, slipping a hand behind his head to deepen the kiss.  _You're real,_  his hands told him.  _This isn't a dream. I'm absolutely sure of it, and you're not dead, and you still want this. And no matter how stupid a decision it is, I'm not going to miss this opportunity._

Then Cosmo thrust him away, and stood, staring down at him for a moment, eyes wide, breathing hard. "Marty," he said. For a moment, there was regret on his face. Then he shook his head, opening the door. Martin followed, knowing what that meant.  _Now, they're listening again. Everything we say, they'll hear._

"Tomorrow they will retrieve your fingerprints from the gun that killed a Russian consular officer," Cosmo said briskly. "The following day, those prints will be run through an FBI computer, and they will come up with a name." He tapped a few keystrokes on the terminal and showed Martin the screen with his name on it. "Martin Brice... my old and good friend, who promised me we would not get in trouble and who, I might add, didn't." He tapped again. Martin watched the encrypted symbols resolve into standard ASCII. "Then they'll check this database in Washington, D.C., which I'm now able to access, thanks to you."

Cosmo stared at Martin, his face unreadable. "Of course, no one knows where Martin Brice is, do they? But what if this indicated an alias?" He typed MARTIN BISHOP into the field next to the label KNOWN ALIASES.

"Don't," Martin begged. "Don't do it, Cos."

His lips pressed together. "Pain?" Martin nodded. Cosmo nodded back. "Try prison." He tapped the key, and it was done.

Martin bowed his head. His friends, he knew, would miss him, and Liz. But really, the man he thought he'd feared would hurt most if he were taken away was the one  _doing it_  to him. How much did he have to lose?

"Ciao," murmured Cosmo.

Martin turned to find Tweedledum flanking him on one side, and Tweedlegrumpy on the other. "Oh, no," he sighed, "not the head..."

"Just relax," Dick said, as Wallace tightened his arms around Martin's neck.

As the darkness descended once more, he heard Cosmo say, reprovingly, in the new voice - his  _real_  voice, "No more secrets, Marty."


End file.
